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George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life

by George Manville Fenn · English · Gutenberg #36893 · 588,694 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life

Author: George Manville Fenn


        
Release date: July 29, 2011 [eBook #36893]
                Most recently updated: May 28, 2016

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE ALFRED HENTY: THE STORY OF AN ACTIVE LIFE ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




George Alfred Henty
The Story of an Active Life
By George Manville Fenn
Illustrations by Photographs
Published by Blackie and Son Limited, London.
George Alfred Henty, by George Manville Fenn.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
GEORGE ALFRED HENTY, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.


PREFACE.

G.A. Henty occupied so large a place in the hearts of boys that, when
his active life all too soon came to a close, it seemed desirable that
those readers whom he had entertained for so many years should have an
opportunity of knowing something more of the man himself than was
contained in his books.  Every writer, consciously or unconsciously,
reveals himself in his work, but nevertheless it cannot fail to be
interesting to boys to read of the actual experiences of the sturdy war
correspondent--those experiences which furnished him with many a vivid
background for his romances.  It was at once the fascination and the
value of his tales that, while nominally fiction, they were built up on
a solid substratum of fact.  When the present writer, however, was asked
to undertake this memoir of his old and valued friend, he was confronted
with a grave difficulty.  Of few men of George Henty's eminence is less
known about their private lives.  A staunch and loyal friend, he yet
strongly believed, to use the old Cockney phrase, in "keeping himself to
himself."  His letters were never autobiographical, and about himself he
was never very communicative.  Little more than his vivid letters from
foreign countries exist to give an insight into the man and his
character.

In his many absences from England during his career as a war
correspondent, Henty contented himself with the briefest of home
communications, and these told little more than where he was and what
was the state of his health.  He always said that those he loved could
refer to the newspaper he represented for the rest.

To the courtesy of Mr C. Arthur Pearson, the present proprietor of _The
Standard_, who placed the whole of the files of that paper unreservedly
at his disposal, the writer is very greatly indebted, while for much
valuable information he would like to thank the editors of _The
Captain_, _Chums_, _The Boy's Own Paper_, _Great Thoughts_, _Young
England_, and _Table Talk_.

G.M.F.


CHAPTER ONE.

EARLY DAYS.

We might know very little of the life of the late George Alfred Henty--
writer for and teacher of boys, novelist, and one of the most virile of
our war correspondents--but for one fortunate fact.  His busy pen soon
made him popular, and in course of time this popularity was sufficient
to make editors of journals for the young realise that their readers
would gladly learn something of the early life of the man whose vivid
tales of adventure were being read with avidity wherever the English
language had spread.  In these days few are content to know a man only
by his work, and even boys like to know something about the personality
and experiences of the writers who have given them keen pleasure.  As a
result the inevitable came to pass, and the modern chronicler of
personal details sought out the author.  To his interviewers Henty told
fragments of his past life, and these reminiscences were taken down in
short or long hand, and built up into articles, and have remained, to
bring before us vividly what would otherwise never have been known save
perhaps by tradition.

It is strange now to reflect that the big, robust, heavy, manly-looking
Englishman of whom these lines are written, was once a puny, sickly boy
who was looked upon by his relatives as one who could never by any
possibility attain to man's estate; but so it was.  Here are his own
words: "I spent my boyhood, to the best of my recollection, in bed."

Descended from an old Sussex family, George Alfred Henty was born at
Trumpington, near Cambridge, on December 8, 1832, and it would appear
that he was a confirmed invalid.  This ill-health was the more
unfortunate because it was in the days when doctors were inclined to be
narrow-minded, and parents and guardians in almost every household had
intense belief in the virtues of physic.  Most mothers then were given
to doctoring, and at spring-time and fall considered it to be their duty
to administer filthy infusions, decoctions, and very often concoctions,
to unhappy boyhood; and a powder at night, to be followed by a nightmare
of the draught that was to be taken in the morning, is a painful
recollection to some of us.

Happy boys of the present generation!  Why, who among them now know the
meaning of words which must almost seem like cabalistic characters?
Jalap, rhubarb, magnesia, salts and senna, gamboge, James's powder--
these were all in constant request, without taking into consideration
the secrets promulgated by the wicked writers of books on domestic
medicine.

It was in those days that George Henty was born.  He tells of an early
removal at the age of five to Canterbury, to a fine old house whose
garden ran down to the River Stour.  Here for the next five years his
mind became stored with those most wholesome of recollections connected
with boy life.  It was the bird, bee, and butterfly time, brightened by
the presence of a grand trout stream, to whose banks he would creep, so
as not to send the spotted beauties darting off in a flash of ruddy gold
to seek some hiding-place from the gigantic shadow that had suddenly
been cast athwart the stream.  He tells, too, in many a page of his
later life, how the influences of this good old garden were a solace and
delight to him during many a weary tramp or journey in the saddle far
away; in the course of his journeys through Europe, the wilds of Asia,
and the savage mountains and dense tropic forests and swamps of Africa.

The boy was fortunate, too, in his leanings towards natural history, for
he speaks of a grandfather who was always ready to play the part of
instructor to the young enquiring mind in regard to scientific matters,
and explain the why and the wherefore of such objects as he collected.

When not confined to his bed, Henty attended a Dame school, where the
love of reading was started, and grew and grew so that the sick boy's
lot was softened to the extent that the weariness and suffering of
confinement to his bed became almost pleasant in the forgetfulness
begotten by books.  That which was wanting in the way of education was
made up in these long hours by reading.  To use his own words, he "read
ravenously"--romance, adventure, everything--perfectly unconscious, of
course, of the fact that he was laying in a mighty store for the future,
preparing himself, in fact, for the great work of his life, the broad
and wide education of the boys of a generation to come.

In those days, though the classics hardly had place (there was little of
Latin or Greek), he was piling up general knowledge such as comes to the
lot of few lads now, in spite of the boasted advance in educational
matters and all the elaborate apparatus and routine.  And yet it must
not be supposed that the boy's regular education was neglected.  When
ten years old there was an end to his simple country life, for though
far from well he was sent to London to begin life in a private
boarding-school, a life sadly interfered with by sickness and relapses
into ailments more or less severe, among them being that terrible
disease whose sequelae have shattered many lives--rheumatic fever.  One
of his ailments seems to have been near akin to that of the late Prince
Leopold, namely, a tendency to profuse bleeding.  For this he was
attended by a well-known specialist of the time, whose great remedy for
the boy's complaint was camphine, this being the popular term in those
days for one of the refinements of the so-called rock oils, nowadays
known as petrol or paraffin.

Henty recorded to one of his interviewers that he was so thoroughly
dosed with this peculiar medicine that the specialist warned the nurse
in these words: "I don't say that if you put a light to the boy he will
catch fire, but I advise you not to risk it."  This was accompanied with
further counsel that the future chronicler of boys' adventures should
not be allowed to handle sharp instruments, lest a cut or puncture
should result in his bleeding to death.

Much reading in these early days had so influenced the boy that he had
already become a story-teller, and, as is often the case with first
attempts at writing, pleased with the jingle and flow of words, he had
dropped into poetry.  Now a young poet, as soon as he has satisfied
himself with his lines and has carefully copied them in his best
penmanship, burns to see himself in print.  He then imagines, or is
flattered into the belief, that numbers of people are as anxious as he
to see his work become public; and it appears to have been so here, for
owing to the well-meant kindness of a friend, certain of his early verse
was printed, and it would appear to have been extremely sentimental and
remarkably mild.

It was soon after this, when Henty was fourteen, that he went to
Westminster School.  Liddell was head-master then, and the boy became a
half-boarder, and in a very little while, in his boyish and very natural
vanity, he let his tongue run a little too fast.  He had written verse,
and consequently esteemed himself something of a poet, so it was not
long before he mentioned the fact of his having his work in print.  He
quickly began to wish he had held his tongue.  He had not counted upon
the mischievous delight a pack of schoolboys would take in their special
poet.  If he had written Latin verses it would have been a different
thing; but a love-tale with threatened difficulties to a lady was too
much for them, and a long and continuous "roasting" ensued.  Chaff flew,
indirect and covert allusions were made, and then came bullying.  Henty
says: "It seemed as if the whole school bore a personal animosity
towards poets, and as if they looked upon my publishing the unlucky book
as a bit of `side' unworthy of a Westminster scholar."

This particular poem was unfortunately lost, and the same fate befell
another attempt written later, for the school banter did not crush out
the rhyming faculties.  The later work was written upon a more serious
occasion, and, devoted to his future wife, it was cared for and
preserved for long years as a valued treasure; indeed, only about ten
years before his death, Henty was taking it up to town and accidentally
left it in the railway carriage.  Attempts to recover it proved vain,
and though he offered a large sum of money as a reward, he never heard
of it again.

As the lad's education progressed at Westminster it was not long before
he began to realise that the curriculum was not complete, and that no
boy's studies were perfect without a thorough knowledge of the noble
science of self-defence.  Indeed, he had not been long at the great
school before he came in contact with one of the regular school bullies,
who began to tyrannise until young Henty awoke to the fact that he
possessed a high spirit and an absence of that weak pusillanimity which
makes men slaves.  He was no mute inglorious Milton, though he aimed at
being a poet.

The boy was father to the man he became, and he bore little before he
turned in defiance and challenged his tyrant.  The natural result was
that he was thrashed out of hand and sent smarting with pain and
mortification to where he could ponder over his defeat.  But he was not
of the mettle to sit down painfully under humiliation, and, to use his
own words, "I soon changed all that."

It was something to learn, something to study; how to acquire the power,
the science, which makes a comparatively weak man the equal of one far
stronger, and, judging the boy by what he was as a man, it was from no
desire to become bully in his turn that he took lessons in boxing, but
from a genuine ambition to hold his own in the matter of self-defence
and to be able to protect those who looked to him for help.  It was with
this desire that, later, when he left Westminster for Cambridge, at a
time when the so-called noble art was at its highest tide, and when
professors of the science had quite a standing at the universities, he
continued its study, and one of the first professors to whom he applied
for lessons (out of college) was the once celebrated Nat Langham, who,
by the way, was the only man who ever vanquished Tom Sayers.  Not
contented with this, but being then in the full burst of his growing
youth and strength--a sort of young athlete thirsting for power like a
boyish Hercules--he took to wrestling, perfectly unconscious then of the
good stead in which it might stand him in the future.  In this sport he
chose as his instructor a Newcastle man, one Jamieson, famed in his way
as being champion of the Cumberland style as opposed to the Cornish.  It
must be borne in mind that all this was prior to the days of the Great
Exhibition, when pugilism was considered no disgrace, and before young
men had begun to foster athleticism in other forms.

It was a strange reaction in the youth who had passed the greater part
of his early life upon a sickbed, and it seemed as if the brave nature
within him was exerting itself to throw off his natural weakness.

That thrashing he received in his early days at Westminster seemed to
have roused him, spurred him on to gain strength, and he was encouraged
too by the stirring times in which he found himself.  Boating and
cricket were all-important at Westminster.  The studies were hard, but
the masters, wisely enough, encouraged all sports; for the Westminster
boys, as our chronicles have shown us, learned there to hold their own
the wide world round.  One need not here point to the long roll of
famous names.  These pages are devoted to one alone.

Henty takes a very modest view of his own prowess, and says of his life
at Westminster: "Boating or cricket--you had your choice; but once made,
you had to be perfect in one or the other.  Fellows rowed then and
played cricket then.  They had to."

The Thames was their course.  There was no Saint Thomas's Hospital then,
and the boat-houses were on the banks.  The river was pretty handy to
the great school, and at the sight of the Westminster crews the boatmen
used to come across to fetch the boys.  These were the days before the
Thames Embankment, when the river sprawled, so to speak, at low water
over long acres of deep mud, swarming with blood-worms, and though the
river tides ran swirling to and fro the current was greatly quickened.
Later the number of steamers increased and cut up the Westminster
rowing, so that it went all to pieces.  It was so greatly affected that
the Old Westminsters' Club tried to move the sport to Putney; but it
never regained its old standing.  Westminster, however, though known
best as a boating school, was a great cricketing one as well.  At one
time five Westminster men played in the All England Eleven; but Henty
was not a cricketer.  As a young athlete, he selected rowing.  Both
sports could not be managed; the standard was too high.

Henty describes himself in his growing days and at Cambridge as a sort
of walking skeleton; but he was big-boned, and the life he led as
manhood approached made him fill out and grow fast into the big,
muscular, burly man that he was to the end of his life.  In fact, he has
said that in later days, when he went down to the Caius College Annual
Dinners, while he knew most of the men of his own standing, not one
recognised him.  And this can easily be grasped when it is understood
that in his college days at nineteen he weighed nine and a half stone,
while as a man in vigorous health he was as much as seventeen.

He does not forget to credit his school with the education his Alma
Mater afforded him.  He says: "She did give me a good drilling in Latin.
Perhaps not elegant classical Latin, but good, everyday, useful,
colloquial stuff."  In his time the masters were great upon the old
dramatic author whom so many of our modern dramatists have tapped right
through Elizabethan, Restoration, and more modern times, down to the
present.  In Henty's early days, just as is annually the custom now, one
or other of Terence's comedies was chosen for a performance by the
Queen's Scholars, while every other boy as a matter of course had to get
up one play as the lesson of the year as well, and doubtless, as has
been the case with many a schoolboy in turn, would fall a-wondering how
it was that the great Latin poet possessed an Irish name.

Latin verses and Latin colloquial phrases were hard enough to pile up,
while parents and guardians, ready enough to complain, found fault at so
much time being devoted to the dead languages to the exclusion of those
which are spoken now.  Hear, ye grumblers, what George Henty says
thereon to an interviewer:--

"When I went out to the Crimea, and later, to Italy, I found that
everyday Latin invaluable.  It was the key to modern Italian, and a very
good key too.  But more than that, it meant that wherever I could come
across a priest I had a friend and an interpreter.  Without my
recollections of Terence I don't know where I should have been when I
first tackled life as a war correspondent."

He speaks of Westminster as giving him his first introduction to
boating, not merely rowing, but boating with the use of the sail.  There
was a man on the Surrey side in those days, named Roberts, from whom the
boys used to hire their four-oared and eight-oared cutters, wager boats,
and the occasional randan for three, two oars and sculls.  This man had
a small half-decked boat which Henty first learned to handle.  In it he
learned also the stern necessity of always being on the alert after
hoisting sail--a necessity which doubtless gave rise to the good old
proverbial warning, "Look out for squalls."  Yet, in spite of everyone
knowing and often using this warning phrase, it is too often neglected
by careless boating people, who will not realise what a duty it is never
to make fast the sheet.

Here at Westminster and in the little half-decked boat commenced the
healthy passion of Henty's life, and he acquired something of the skill
which enabled him through manhood to go to sea and feel no fear even in
rough weather, strengthened as he was by the calm confidence that
accompanied, in the broad sense of the term, "knowing the ropes."

The days of a public-schoolboy came to an end, and with their conclusion
arrived the feeling that he was a man.  But after all it was the
schoolboy feeling of manhood, though it was very manly in one thing, for
it brought with it the knowledge that he had spent too much time in
play, and with it too the feeling that he must make up for the past.
Hence it was that he went in for what he termed a burst of hard reading
as soon as he reached Cambridge and entered at Caius College.  In the
full realisation of his failings he proved that he was still a boy, for
he set to and began reading night and day for about three weeks, so as
to acquire as much as should have taken him about six months' work.  As
a result nature said nay, and gave him a severe lesson in the shape of
an illness which knocked him over, so that he had to go down for a
year's rest, as it was termed, but it was in reality a good spell of
health-giving instructive work which greatly influenced his future
career.  In fact, he now began to pick up the information which he so
largely utilised afterwards in his books.  Here was his first study for
_Facing Death_, one of his most widely read boys' stories--boys', though
it was as much read by men.  For he went down into Wales, where his
father possessed a coal-mine and iron works, and at the latter he
acquired such knowledge and insight into engineering as to enable him at
a critical time in his career as a war correspondent to call himself an
engineer.  Reporting himself as an English engineer desirous of studying
the practical effect of great gun fire, he had no difficulty in getting
permission to accompany the Italian Fleet in what was virtually the
first battle between iron-clad men-of-war.

Henty's subsequent military training, together with his physique and
stern decision of manner, made him naturally an excellent leader of men.
In ordinary civilised life he was one who, at a gathering, would be
pretty well sure to be selected as chairman, for upon occasion he could
abandon his quiet soft-spoken manner, fill out his chest, and, if
slightly roused by opposition, speak out with a decision and a firmness
that would lay antagonism low; while, if it happened to be in a lower
stratum of not to say savage but uncivilised life, his training had made
him a picked disciplinarian, one who had his own particular way of
maintaining order and gaining the affections as well as the obedience of
those whom he had to command.

This was simple enough in the army with disciplined men, but there were
occasions when his services were selected to guide and govern the
undisciplined and those of the roughest and most obstreperous nature.

Upon one occasion fate placed him, the cultivated scholar and
Westminster boy, as foreman, or as it was termed amongst the men,
"ganger", over a strong body of men engaged upon the construction of
some small military railway.  His men were a very lively party,
extremely insubordinate at first, and ready if matters did not go
exactly as they pleased--if the work seemed too rough, or the supply of
available strong drink too handy--to throw down their tools, or reply
with insolence to their foreman, whose calm, quiet ways and speech
seemed to invite resistance.  It was in ignorance that the fellow who
offended did this thing, and he did not offend a second time, for Henty
was leader with plenary powers, and he had but one way of dealing with a
rough.  It was to order him at once to the place which he used as his
business office, and with quiet firmness and decision, and in the
presence of his following, to pay the man off there and then, to the
great delight of the rest of the gang, who knew what was to follow.  The
offender was paid in full and told to be off from the line.  He, of
course, retaliated with an outburst of flowery language, noting the
while the gathering together of his mates.  Henty meantime was quietly
taking off his coat and rolling up his sleeves preparatory to showing
the unbelieving ruffian how a muscular athletic English gentleman, a
late pupil of a great professor of boxing, could scientifically handle
his fists and give the scoundrel, to the intense delight of the
lookers-on, a thoroughly solid and manly thrashing.  This invariably
ended in the offender crying, "Hold!  Enough!" and accepting his
punishment without bearing malice; and in almost every case the gang was
not only not weakened by the loss of a man, but it maintained a more
willing worker than it had possessed before.

As may be readily supposed, the gentleman ganger lost no prestige
amongst his men by such an exhibition of his prowess, for he knew most
accurately with whom he had to deal, that is to say, so many big
stalwart men of thews and muscle, such as our contractors have utilised
for linking land to land with road and bridge, men of untiring energy
and endurance, but with the mental capacity of stupid children.  These
formed Henty's gang, and to his credit be it recorded that his treatment
proved as efficacious as it was firm, the punishment being given calmly
and in cold blood, to the astonishment of the man who received it.


CHAPTER TWO.

FROM CAMBRIDGE TO THE CRIMEA.

Soon after his return to Cambridge troubles with Russia were "on the
tapis", and as it to show the preparedness for war which did not exist,
_Punch_, as is usually the case, began to take notice of our army and
navy.  It signalised the latter by referring to an event of the day, to
wit, the sham-fight at Spithead, and represented a theatrical combat of
the melodramatic Surrey or Victoria Theatre type between two British
sailors, one being down and his comrade resting over him, hands on knees
and cutlass in suspense, with the lines beneath: "Ah, it's all werry
well, Bill, but my, if you'd been a Rooshian!"

Then sham-fights and assumed preparation for war died into thin air.
Matters came to a head, and our unpreparedness was awfully written in
disease, starvation, and death for those who studied the columns of news
from the Crimea.

All young England was in a state of excitement.  The Crimean War was
upon every lip, and every hot-blooded young man burned to get to the
front.  Among these was George Henty.  The quiet student life at the
university became painful; the days passed in Caius College seemed to be
prison-like.  He too, strung up by that natural instinct that has made
"Englishman" a name famous in the world's history, grew more and more
restless.  In the nick of time he was offered an appointment in the
Commissariat Department of the army, and the first steps were taken
which enabled him to claim the rank of lieutenant in the British army,
though it was to be in the utility more than in the fighting ranks.

One of our distributors of Attic salt once wrote, in the plain and
pungent witticism of his time, that an army crawled upon its stomach in
its progress to conquest; and by a strange irony of circumstances the
young lieutenant--for, as said above, that was the rank Henty bore
during the few years he served in the British army--found himself
providing and superintending the supplies of that army in order to
enable it to progress on that portion of its anatomy which keeps it
alive, that is to say, when he was not busily engaged in superintending
hospital wards and organising arrangements, sanitary and otherwise, in
those depressing asylums for the wounded and the sick.  The work was
arduous enough, but Henty was the man to do it, in spite of the fragile
promise of his youth, and the head-shaking as to his future of those who
knew him.  He must have been a very disappointing man to his social
prophets, seeing that he grew above the ordinary height, and came to be
big-boned and stalwart, his powerful frame well clothed with sinew and
muscle.  He was endowed with everything in fact suited to the making of
what would be called a good all-round man, while his education, fostered
by his natural pluck and determination, rendered him one who in his
early manhood was a thorough athlete.  Enough indeed has been said to
show that in addition to being a powerful and skilful wrestler, and a
formidable competitor in a friendly contest with the gloves, he was a
dangerous adversary when necessity compelled him to make full use of
what was veritably the noble art of self-defence against the brutal scum
of European life with which he was brought into contact.

In the full vigour of his manly youth he was a splendid walker, thinking
nothing of doing fifty miles in a day, and this not at the expense of
exhaustion, for after a brief period of rest he could repeat the walk
with comparative ease.  Muscular to a degree, he was a steady and
dependable comrade in a boat.  In addition, aided by the possession and
the capacity of a broad deep chest, whose buoyancy was a tremendous
asset, he could swim with ease and untiring skill.

Then, too, he made himself a good wielder of the foils, and the usual
training of a military man enabled him to handle the service sword with
as much ability as he displayed in pistol practice or with the rifle.
Following up the ordinary education of a youth and young man with the
acquiring and strengthening of such accomplishments as these, his
appearance was such as would render him in competition one who would be
chosen on any emergency as a leader of men, one who would be obeyed, and
whose word would be law to those over whom he was placed.

Excitement was raging in England after the failures and disappointments
that were being canvassed during the Crimean War; all England was wroth
as William Howard Russell's letters were read, telling the terrible
tales of disease, starvation, and neglect suffered by our brave
soldiers.  Accusations against the authorities were rife, accusations
which stirred the Government to action and to making more systematic
provision for our troops.  It will be readily understood, therefore,
that the offer made by a man, so full of energy as Henty, to become a
recruit in the Purveyors' Department in the Crimea, that is to say, the
Hospital Commissariat, was accepted at once, though his place would more
naturally have been in the fighting line.

However, fate ordained that he was to do good work in connection with
the provisioning of the unfortunate soldiers who had suffered so cruelly
during the previous winter.  Attacking his task with his customary
energy, as soon as he reached Balaclava in the early spring of 1855 he
was found busy among the stores which were to be distributed, or
arranging the contents of the huts which were filled with wine and the
more medicinal stimulants which were to be reserved for the sick or the
wounded that were brought into the temporary hospital.

Here he was brought into touch with the officers of the medical and
surgical department, and in connection with the transport service, for
order was now springing up fast where chaos and despair had reigned so
long.

Henty writes home about the preparation of food and comforts for the
sick, and the provision of mules and their drivers for the transport of
the sick and wounded.  And now his fighting times commence--not with the
sword and revolver with which he was armed; his encounters were with the
shadow of death, as an adjunct to the strong body of surgical and
medical men who were struggling so hard to make up for the want of
preparation in the past.

With regard to the mule service there is a grim touch in one of Henty's
letters home concerning the duties of these useful, hard-working but
stubborn brutes.  Where he found himself this portion of the transport
service was kept in readiness, some fifty strong, to take ammunition
down to the trenches, and on their return journey to bring the wounded
back.

A strange life this, superintending and aiding in such matters, for a
young man fresh from Cambridge University.  It must have been a curious
disillusionising to be hurried out to the Crimea, nerve and brain
throbbing with warlike aspirations connected with the honour and glory
of war, and then to find himself in the sordid atmosphere of the wet
tents and rough huts, where the winter was still holding its own, while
the constant booming of the great guns added to the general misery and
wretchedness.  The possibility of an explosion was another cause of
anxiety, for there was ever the prospect of a shell falling in one or
other of the magazines which supplied the batteries, and a resulting
disaster unless the fire could be extinguished in time.  These alarms
generally occurred in the night, when, following upon the lurid display
of flames from some hut or workshop set on fire by Russian shot, there
would be the roar of orders, the shouting of men, and the dread of the
fire being communicated to the crowd of shipping in the little sheltered
harbour.

It was a wondrous change from the calm and quiet of the university city
to the roar and turmoil of the besieging camp with the thunder of our
batteries, the return fire from Sebastopol, and the constant shells
dropping in from the enemy's forts.

Very shortly after he reached Balaclava he seized an opportunity to ride
over the held of Inkermann, the scene of the surprise attack made by the
Russians nearly six months before, and he says that at the top of the
hill where the principal struggle took place the ground was still
covered with the remains of the contest--ammunition pouches, Russian
caps, broken weapons and other grim relics--while, rather ironically, in
allusion to the way in which the allies were surprised, he says that
this spot is now commanded by heavy batteries recently erected, and
alludes to the old adage about locking the stable door after the horse
is stolen.  Even then, so many months after the fight, many bodies of
the Russians were still unburied, and lay there as though to demonstrate
the horrors of war, the while the hill slope and a valley were so
exquisite that the writer fell into raptures about the beauty of the
place.  The steep cliffs were honeycombed with caverns, a ruined castle
stood on an eminence, and the place was beautifully wooded, a stream
that trickled through the valley amidst the exquisitely fresh and green
grass adding to the wonder and the beauty of the scene.  But his
day-dream was given a rude awakening by a hint thrown out, of the risks
to which a war correspondent is exposed in the pursuit of his duty, for
there was the sharp crack of a rifle and the dull thud of a bullet
burying itself in a tree, having missed him narrowly, for luckily the
Russian who had fired at him had not been quite correct in his aim.

Hurrying back, he forgets the danger that he has escaped, and to his
mind it is April once more, and he begins to describe the beauty of the
wild flowers with which the slopes are clothed--irises varying in tint
from pale yellow to orange, others alternating from light blue to
purple, the early spring crocus of pure white, and wild hyacinths in
abundance.

On his way, as everything is fraternal among the besiegers, he and his
companions pass through the French camp and taste the hospitality of
their allies, receiving proof that in this camp, too, matters have been
mended after the horrors of the past winter, for the English visitors
are welcomed with what Henty declares to be first-rate provisions.  But
he is dreadfully matter-of-fact and businesslike directly after, as
behoves an officer of the Purveyors' Department, for he falls
a-wondering why it is that the French bread is far superior to that made
by the bakers in Balaclava, the latter having a sour taste that is
unpleasant and, he thinks, unwholesome.  For his part he prefers the
biscuit, but feels that on their return to England he and his comrades
will be entitled to a handsome compensation for wear and tear of teeth
in the service of their country.  Then, as if by way of comparison with
the alarms that had suggested a fresh attack, he states that the night
was less noisy than usual.  "In the early part our sharpshooters and the
Russians' were cracking away, but about eleven the Russian works opened
upon the parties engaged in the new parallel."  The next night he
announces that a colonel of a French regiment of infantry was struck
down while talking in the trenches to a subaltern--"a sixty-eight pound
shot shattered him frightfully."

At this time England was in the throes of expectation.  The long-delayed
assault upon Sebastopol was expected at any moment, and the main subject
of conversation out in the camp was what day would be appointed.  But
Henty says, "What day that will be no one but Lord Raglan knows--even if
he does himself."  However, at last the long-expected bombardment did
begin.  From a complete circle of batteries round the town, jets of
smoke were bursting, while a perfect shower of shot and shell was poured
into the town and was as incessantly answered.  The wonder was that
buildings did not crumble into dust before such a tremendous fire, for
from our great crescent of mortars a shell was sent every ten minutes
during the night, and the mules that bore the ammunition to the trenches
came back sadly laden with wounded.

Day after day the assault went on, and Henty devoted his spare moments
to recording the various proceedings of the historic siege--the
continuous fire of the English and their French allies, which, in spite
of their vigour, only silenced the Russian batteries for fresh ones to
be opened again after a few hours' hard work; the occasional skirmishes
where attack was made by the Russians to carry a battery and be
repelled; the destruction of rifle pits; the surprises caused by the
Cossacks beginning to show themselves out upon the plain; attacks when
prisoners were taken; replies and rescues.  Then his interest was taken
by the allies who now appeared upon the field in the shape of the Turks
commanded by Omar Pasha in person.  He describes them as a fine body of
men who spend most of their time in drilling; for they display a great
want of military discipline, and their movements are little better than
a shuffle.  But Henty compliments them with the remark that they are
getting into order.  Then he describes their arms and the excellence of
their French rifles, and goes on to display the keenness of his
observation as he seems to bring to bear old recollections of the
_Arabian Nights_ and the peculiarity of the immense number of hunchbacks
among the Turks, nearly all of whom have high round shoulders, which in
a great many amounts to actual deformity.  It is hard to understand,
though, why this should be attributed to their sitting cross-legged.
However, he says the Turkish cavalry and artillery are good, the horses
small but strongly made and in good condition.  Altogether he thinks the
Turkish army a most welcome reinforcement.  All the time the siege goes
on vigorously, with the English men-of-war and gunboats rendering all
the help they can by checking the fire of the forts.

Something of the weird state of affairs around the young Commissariat
officer and correspondent is seen in his description of a leisurely walk
he took to one of our marine batteries.  "The air," he says, "was so
still that I could hear not only the explosion but the whiz of every
shell most distinctly, though distant seven miles as the crow flies."

The delicious spring weather that lasted for a time was followed by a
gale with sleet, and then by forty hours of rain.  The change was
mournfully depressing, the streets of Balaclava were a perfect sea of
mud, everything was forlorn, miserable, and deserted, the officers in
their waterproofs were dejected, and everyone was despondent.  However,
the purveyor officer remarked that the Guards were by this time all
provided with waterproof coats, which kept them dry as they stood at
their posts.  But a thick mist hung over everything; the rain was
soaking through all the tents; the ground had become so soft that the
horses sank in over their fetlocks, while their heads were drooping, and
they appeared the picture of discomfort.  The soldiers going down into
the trenches carried a perfect load of clay upon their shoes, while
those returning came back wet, knocked up, and soaked to the skin.

In another letter, written just after this dreary time, Henty writes
that the night closed in dark and lowering with every promise of wet, a
horror for those dwelling in tents; just the sort of night, he says,
which the Russians delight in for making a sortie from the besieged
city, besides which, he says, they had been unusually quiet, a sign that
mischief was afloat; but as the attacking force was growing pretty well
accustomed to the habits of the enemy, a very strong body of men was
sent down into the trenches.  In proof that this was wise, about ten
o'clock there came somewhere out of the darkness in front the sound of
men using picks and shovels, as if the Russians were raising a
breastwork prior to an attack.  Then an order rang out, and from our own
trenches a sharp fire was opened upon the attacking party; but owing to
the darkness and want of aim it was probable that little damage was
done, and the defenders crowded together in utter silence, listening and
waiting for the attack that all felt was bound to come.

At last, about one o'clock, there was a dull, heavy roar from out of the
foggy night.  It was the signal gun, and instantly the enemy made a rush
at the advanced trenches, to be met with a tremendous volley and stagger
back, but only to come on again bravely out of the darkness, thousands
strong, while the musketry firing was fiercer than anything that had
taken place since the commencement of the siege.  This went on for two
hours, during which time the whole of the Russians, according to custom,
supplemented their fire with the most demoniacal yells, which were
responded to by their friends in the town and answered in defiance by
the cheers of our men in the other batteries at each repulse which the
Russians sustained, for never once, in spite of the bravery of the
attack, did they succeed in entering our advanced trenches.  The next
morning, after they had retired, in spite of the number of wounded and
the dead, whom it was their practice to carry off with them, the ground
was covered with the fallen.

What an experience for the young war correspondent who was making his
first essay in that which was to become his profession for years, and
who in this instance proved how thoroughly adequate he was for his task!

Undaunted by their failure and their immense losses, but a short time
elapsed before the besieged made another sortie, which proved as
unsuccessful as the last; and though the Russian losses must have been
immense, in our bayonet-bristling trenches but few men suffered.  Henty
goes on to say it is quite impossible to describe these night sorties
accurately, for those engaged in them know next to nothing in the
darkness and confusion.  If asked in the morning, they would reply that
the Russians came out strong and that our men loaded and fired in their
direction as fast as they could, that the Russians yelled awfully, and
the shot whizzed about like hail!  This was the invariable account of a
sortie by those engaged in repelling it, unless there was a surprise and
the Russians got inside our trenches, when in the darkness and confusion
all were so mixed up that it was hard to know enemy from friend.  "Can
anything wilder be conceived?"  Henty asks in a description of an
attempt made by the Russians to seize one of our batteries and spike the
guns.  The confusion was tremendous.  Imagine an attack on a dark night,
the rain pouring, the men up to their knees in mud, fighting away all
mixed up together, the constant flashes and reports of guns and
pistols--the revolver being a most useful weapon on these occasions--the
cheers of our men and the yells of the Russians.  At the commencement of
one of these attacks one of our men saw someone crouching over one of
the guns.  He asked him what he was doing.  The only answer was a cut of
the sword, which took off luckily only the tip of his nose.  He
immediately pinned the man to the gun with his bayonet.  He turned out
to be a Russian artilleryman who had managed to get in to spike the gun.

These were strange surroundings for a young literary man, for a rough
hut was often the study of one who was to grow by degrees one of the
widest known of English writers.  Not only the pen, but the pencil had
become familiar to his fingers, and, possibly to fill up dull moments,
he began to make sketches of such objects as took his attention; and the
idea striking him that such subjects might prove attractive to one of
the editors of an illustrated paper at home, he from time to time tried
his hand at some little scene or some quaint-looking character which had
caught his eye.

These supplemented his long letters to a relative, and the idea growing
upon him, he elaborated his writing, making these letters, evidently
with latent hopes for the future, the germs of those which later grew to
be so familiar to the British public.  Everything is said to have a
beginning.  Certainly this was the commencement of George Henty's life
as a war correspondent, but these efforts were not entirely successful.
The sketches were duly taken by their recipient to the different London
illustrated papers, but whether from not being up to the editorial
artistic mark, or from the fact that each paper was already fully
represented, no success attended their presentation.  The letters,
however, fared better in one case, for upon their being offered to the
editor of the _Morning Advertiser_, with a statement as to who and what
the writer was, and where he was engaged, the editor promised to read
them.  He kept his word, and proved his acumen by writing out to the
young lieutenant with an invitation to him to represent the paper and
send him from time to time a series of letters containing the most
interesting occurrences of the campaign that came under his notice.

The opening was eagerly seized upon, and proved highly advantageous to
both parties.  The young officer was a privileged person at
head-quarters, and his letters show that he had a keen power of
observation and a great faculty for selecting subjects that were of
interest to English readers.  As a consequence, he continued to
represent the _Morning Advertiser_ until he was invalided home.


CHAPTER THREE.

INVALIDED HOME.

Henty's Crimean experiences were to be but short, but they enabled him
to give us many admirable and vivid pictures of those stirring days.
Although a non-combatant, he was in the thick of the fight before
Sebastopol, and he seems to have missed nothing, from the most sordid
features to the brightest and best.  He paints the horrors, and takes
note of the pathetic, the good, and true.

He gives us straightforward, telling lines regarding the Turks, and he
records how our comparatively pitiful strength for the gigantic task
upon which we had embarked, and in which our meagre forces had to be
supplemented by the gallant sailors landed from the fleet, now grew into
immense strength, the last ally being Sardinia with her little army of
eighteen thousand men.

He has something to say about Soyer and his culinary campaign and model
kitchen, so urgently needed for the sick and suffering, and of the great
aid it was to the doctors, whose hands were more than full of the sick
and wounded when their battle began with the dire cholera.  He has
sympathetic words, too, for the heroine of Scutari, where she seems to
have led a charmed life, saving the sinking and suffering by her calm
sweet presence, and encouraging in their continuous struggle the nurses
who would have given up in despair.  No wonder that the name of Florence
Nightingale was at the time on every lip, and that even now, from the
far West and the antipodean South, the English-speaking race pay a
pilgrim-like visit to the peaceful home in Derwent Dale where the
illustrious lady is spending the evening of her life.

Henty paints, too, his own existence in camp during those spring days
when the rain was upon them.  He says to his readers: "Let them plant a
small tent in the centre of an Irish bog, for to nothing else can I
compare this place [before Sebastopol] when it is wet; the mud is
everywhere knee-deep, while the wet weather has had another bad effect,
in that it has accelerated the attacks of cholera, which is of a most
malignant type, and a very large proportion of cases are fatal."  He
begins one paragraph, too, with a short sentence which is terribly
suggestive of a peril that had passed: "Miss Nightingale is better."

But all through his narrative, so full of the observations of a young,
clear-minded, energetic man, there stands out plainly the fact that he
was there upon a particular duty--that connected with the department of
which he was an officer.  At one time he is writing about the water, the
excellency and purity of the supply; then he is condemning the
arrangements, and no doubt pointing out the need of a better system, so
that this bounteous supply should not be wasted by allowing the horses
and mules to trample it into a swamp of mud.  And the need for these
precautions was soon shown, even during his stay, for as the weeks
passed, even where the produce of the springs was plentiful, the men had
to go farther and farther afield for a fresh supply.

At another time he is falling foul of the bread which is served out to
the officers and men.  He denounces it as quite unfit for human food.
It was by no means first-rate at the time of its leaving the ovens at
Constantinople, but by the time it arrived it was "one mass of blue
mould;" yet it was served out regardless of its condition and at a very
great risk to the health of the soldiers.  In fact, he notes that it was
so bad that even animals refused it.  No wonder he made comparisons
between this and the admirable supply served out to the French army.

Thoughtful and wise too in these early days, Henty has much to say
regarding sanitary matters, the necessity for care, and above all--no
doubt this was forced upon him by their propinquity--he is eloquent
about the hospitals; again, and this would scarcely have been expected
from one so young, he points out the way in which the air is tainted by
the dead animals which are allowed to lie unburied.

He began his duties at Balaclava in April, and at the beginning of June
he writes, as might have been expected, that he is sorry that his letter
this time will have to be a short one, as he has for the last two days
suffered from a severe attack of the prevailing epidemic, which has
prevented him from going out at all.  Three days later he sends word
that the great bombardment of Sebastopol has recommenced.  He too is
better--well enough to show his interest in the great general hospital
kept especially for the reception of the wounded, and to record that it
is filling fast.  He has sympathetic words for the sufferers and their
ghastly wounds from shot and shell splinter.  He talks from personal
observation of the firmness and patience of the poor fellows over their
wounds, and of the extraordinary coolness and sang-froid with which they
suffer the dressing, even to the amputation of an arm above the elbow,
both bones below being broken by a minie-ball.  The conduct of these
humble heroes brings to mind the old naval story of the past, of the
Jack whose leg had been taken off in action, and who resented the idea
of being tied up while amputation was performed.  "No," he said; "only
give me my pipe;" and he sat up and smoked till the surgeon had
operated.  This in the days, too, when anaesthetics were not in use, and
haemorrhage was checked by means of a bucket of tar.  Poor Jack sat up
consciously and looked on!

Henty's record is that when one soldier's operation was performed and he
was about to be carried into the hospital ward, he exclaimed, "I'm all
right," rose up and walked to his ward, lighted his pipe, and got into
bed.  This is given as a single instance taken at random from among
numbers of cases.

In his last letter from the Crimea, dated June 18, 1855, he records that
there had been a serious reverse to the allied arms.  He had by this
time somewhat recovered from his severe fit of illness, but he had long
been over-exerting himself.  The doctors delivered their ultimatum, and
he became one of the many who, weakened by the terrible exposure, were
invalided home.

Unfortunately a harder fate attended his only brother, Fred, who left
England with him when he obtained his appointment to the Purveyors'
Department, for he was seized by the prevailing epidemic, cholera, and
died at Scutari.


CHAPTER FOUR.

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF ITALY.

The department which invalided George Henty and sent him home to recoup
did not lose sight of the man who had earned such a good name in the
Crimea, and as soon as he was reported convalescent it began to look
about for a position in which his services would prove valuable.

Here was a man who, in connection with his duties in the Purveying
Department during the late war, had more or less distinguished himself
by the acumen he had displayed and the reports he had sent in concerning
the state of the temporary hospitals and the treatment of the sick and
wounded.  There is not much favour shown over such work as his.  The
fact was patent that in Henty the authorities had a man of keen
observation who grasped at once what was wanted in time of war in
connection with the movements of an army, one whose mission it was not
to direct movements and utilise the forces who were, so to speak, being
used in warfare, but who knew how to make himself a valuable aid to
supplement doctor and surgeon, and to carry on their work of saving
life--in short, the right man in the right place.

So he was selected and sent out to Italy charged with the task of
organising the hospitals of the Italian Legion.  The very wording of
such an appointment as this is enough to take an ordinary person's
breath away.  It might have been supposed that the department would have
selected as organiser some mature professional man and M.D., with the
greatest experience in such matters, ripened in the work and well known
as a great authority; but to their credit they grasped the fact that
Henty's experience was proved and real.  Book-lore and the passing of
examinations were as nothing in comparison with what this young man of
twenty-seven had learned in roughly extemporised hospital, tent, and hut
amidst the inclemency of a foreign clime, in the face of the horrible
scourge of an Eastern epidemic, where the wounded died off like flies,
not from the wounds, which under healthy environment would rapidly have
healed, but from that deadly enemy, pyaemia, or hospital gangrene.  It
was this which proved so fatal after the otherwise healing touch of the
skilful surgeon's knife--for these were the days prior to the
discoveries made by Lister, which completely revolutionised the surgical
art.

While in Italy in 1859 in connection with the hospital work, Henty
stored his mind with the results of his observations.  They were
stirring times.  War was on the way; Sardinia's army, fresh from
fleshing its sword in the Crimea, was eager for the fight that was
partially to free Italy, and the name of Garibaldi was on every lip, for
he and his Red Shirts were burning to attack the hated Austrian.  While
finding an opportunity to be present at some of the engagements, Henty
was busy preparing himself for writing history, and his brain was
actively acquiring the language and habits of the people in a way that
was an unconscious preparation for a future visit to the country in
connection with the duties of a war correspondent.

It was during this visit to Italy in 1859, and while performing his
duties of inspector and organiser of the Italian hospitals, that Henty
made his first acquaintance with Garibaldi and his enthusiastic army so
bent upon freeing Italy from the yoke of Austria.  In a number of most
interesting letters, picturesque and full of the observation and
training that he was gathering for the construction of the series of
adventurous stories now standing to his name, he details his meetings
with the Red Shirts.  Bright, high-spirited boys they were in many
cases, ever with the cry of liberty upon their lips, and only too ready
to welcome and to fraternise with the daring, manly young fellow who
thought as little as they of the personal risks which had to be faced,
and who was subsequently to chronicle this portion of their history and
the warlike deeds of their chief.

After his return from the organising expedition with the Italian Legion,
Henty was placed in charge of the Commissariat Departments at Belfast
and Portsmouth, and now held the rank of captain.  A plodding life this
for a military man with all the making in him of a strong, thoughtful
soldier, one who would have become the strongest link in the vertebrae
of a regiment, so to speak, the one nearest the brain.

Fate, however did not guide him in that direction, but, as we know now,
led him towards becoming the critic of armies instead of an actor in
their ranks.

Judging from Henty's nature and the steadiness and constancy of his life
in the pursuit of the career which he chose, it could not have been
lightly that he came to the decision that from the way in which he had
entered the army there did not seem to be any future for him worthy of
his attention, for the British army has always been marked by the way in
which birth and money have been the stepping-stones to promotion.  Of
course there have been exceptions, but the British soldier has never
been famed for carrying a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, and it
is only of comparatively late years that the famous old anomaly of
promotion by purchase has died out.

Certainly Henty entered the army as a university man and a gentleman,
but he must have begun to feel, taught by experience, that he had gone
in by the wrong door, the one which led in an administrative direction
and not to the executive with a future of command.

During Henty's stay in Ireland he had a very unpleasant experience with
a rough in Dublin, or rather, to be accurate, a rough in Dublin had a
very unpleasant experience with Henty.  Somehow or other, while out
walking with his young wife, for he was now married, a brutal fellow
offered some insult to Mrs Henty, in the purest ignorance of the kind
of man whose anger he had roused.  One says roused, for in ordinary life
Henty was one of the calmest and quietest of men; but he had plenty of
chivalry in his composition, and moreover, as has been shown, he had had
the education and training of an athlete, leavened with the instructions
of the North-country trainer who taught him the jiu-jitsu of his day as
practised by a Newcastle man.  What followed was very brief, for there
was a quick, short struggle, and the Dublin Pat--a city blackguard, and
no carrier of a stick--was sent flying over Henty's head, _hors de
combat_, much surprised at the strength and skill of such a man as he
had possibly never encountered before in his life.


CHAPTER FIVE.

THE ITALIAN WAR.

Henty proved early the excellence of his capabilities, and that he was a
man who would be all that was required for the preservation of men's
lives; but such as he meet with scant encouragement, and at last, as
said above, he made up his mind to try in a fresh direction, and
resigned his commission.

Led no doubt by his leanings, and taught by old experience in connection
with his father's enterprises in coal-mining, he made a fresh start in
life in mining engineering, and was for some time in Wales, where his
knowledge of mining, and natural firmness and aptitude as a leader and
trained controller of bodies of men, made him a valuable agent for the
adventurous companies who are ready to open up new ground.  His
operations were so successful that after a time he entered into
engagements which resulted in his proceeding to the Island of Sardinia.
Here there was much untried ground to invite the speculation of the
enterprising and adventurous; for it is a country rich in minerals,
several of them being so-called precious stones, and there seemed
excellent promise of profit.  A good deal of speculative research was at
one time on the way, and here, following his work in Wales, Henty spent
some busy years, not, though, without finding the value of his early
athletic education, for the lower orders were not too well disposed to
the young English manager under whom they worked.

Returning to England early in the sixties, he once more turned his
attention to his pen, having proved, while in the Crimea, his ability
for writing quick and observant descriptive copy, specimens of which
were extant in the columns of the _Morning Advertiser_, and of which he
had examples pasted up and preserved.  Moreover, when he began to make
application for work, he had the satisfaction of finding that his
articles had already excited notice in the literary world.  This helped
him to obtain an engagement, somewhere in 1865, as special correspondent
of the _Standard_, and he carried out his duties so successfully that he
became a standard of the _Standard_, and was sent out in 1866 as one of
the special correspondents of that paper to Italy, to report upon the
proceedings of the Italian armies which had then united in the
operations against the Austrian forces.

Italy was to some extent familiar hunting-ground for Henty, inasmuch as
at the time when he went to undertake the task of reorganising the
hospitals of the Italian Legion he had seen a good deal of the country,
picked up much of the language, and had become acquainted with Garibaldi
and his followers when, as said before, they were engaged in the
encounters which resulted in partially freeing Italy from the Austrian
yoke.

It was now that his early experience of the country and the mastery he
had obtained over the Italian language stood him in good stead, while,
as a matter of course, his experience and general knowledge of the
country made him an ideal chronicler of the movements of the campaign.

Plunged, as it were, right in the midst of the troubles, he seems to
have been here, there, and everywhere, and by some means or another he
was always on the spot whenever anything exciting was on the way.  Now
he was at sea, now with the Garibaldians scouting on the flanks of the
Austrian army, now making journeys by Vetturinos across the mountains,
to turn up somewhere along with the forces of the king, and always ready
to bring a critical eye to bear--the eye of a soldier--in comparing the
three forces, the volunteer Garibaldians, the Italian regulars, and the
Austrians.  The last mentioned seemed to him to be, in their drill,
unquestionably superior to the Italians, displaying a strong _esprit de
corps_, rigid obedience to their officers, and an amount of German
impassibility far more adapted to make them bear unmoved the hardships
and discouragements of long struggles and reverses than the enthusiasm
of the Italians--an enthusiasm which was manifested in a perfect furore
of delight throughout Italy on the news of the declaration of war,
tidings reaching Henty from every city, of illuminations, of draping
with flags, and other celebrations.

"Even Naples," he says, "which has been far behind the rest of Italy in
her ardour for the cause, began to rejoice at the termination of the
long delay;" but he declares there was no doubt that the reactionary
party had been very hard at work there, with the result that a number of
turbulent spirits had been sent away from among the volunteers, the
excesses which they had committed threatening to bring the Garibaldians
into disrepute.

He now fully proved his ability for the task he had undertaken.  Writing
home as soon as he had crossed Switzerland early in June a long series
of most interesting letters, he commenced with his first meeting with
Garibaldi and his followers at Como, and continued throughout the war
until victory crowned the efforts of the united armies of Italy and the
patriots, and ended (as in a culminating outburst of pyrotechnic
display) with the triumphant spectacles at Venice after the Austrians
were finally expelled.

Later, Henty gave permanency to his ephemeral contributions to the
journal upon which he was engaged; but in these early days he was a
comparatively unknown man, with nothing to commend him to the notice of
an enterprising publisher, and the makings of a most interesting
descriptive work sparkled for a few hours in the pages of the big
contemporary newspaper and then died out, with the ashes only left,
hidden, save to searchers in the files preserved at the newspaper office
and in the British Museum.  For Henty, wanting time and opportunity,
never reproduced these letters in their entirety, though they remained
in the journalistic print and _in petto_, ready for use, as in a kind of
brain mine when, as time rolled on, his adventures in story-land began
to achieve success and excite demand.  Then they doubtless supplied
pabulum for such tales as _Jack Archer_, _The Cat of Bubastes_, and _The
Lion of Saint Mark_, stories quite remarkable for the truth of their
local colour.  The last named so influenced a young American lad on a
visit to England, that he prevailed upon his father to take him to see
Henty, while afterwards, on being taken to Venice, he wrote a clever,
naive letter, which is quoted elsewhere, to the author of his choice,
telling him of his delight in coming to Europe and seeing for himself
the Venice of to-day, where he recognised the very places that Henty had
so truthfully described.

It is a pity that these letters were not reprinted in book form; but
long before an opportunity could have served, the brave struggles of the
Italians to free themselves from the Austrian yoke, and the fame of
Garibaldi, had grown stale as popular subjects for the general reader,
and the question with the publisher, "would a book upon this subject
sell?" being only answerable in the negative, nothing was done.  In
fact, in those days, save in one instance, there was no demand for the
reprinting of a journalist's contributions to a daily paper.  This
particular instance seemed to stand out at once as the prerogative of
one man alone, he who has only just gone to his well-earned and honoured
rest, and whose contributions to the _Times_, _My Diary in India_, that
vivid narrative of the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, became a
classic.

It was like old times to Henty, after crossing Switzerland, to find
himself at Como awaiting the arrival of Garibaldi, who was reported to
be on his way.  A portion of the Garibaldian army was already there, and
in a short time, to his great satisfaction, Henty found that their chief
was hourly expected to take command of the volunteers.

His information proved to be true, and in the midst of tremendous
enthusiasm he found the volunteers drawn up in double line reaching
through the town, flags waving, the people shouting, and everyone
working himself into a fever of heat.

As the chief approached, the people seemed to have gone out of their
minds.  Caps were thrown up recklessly, at the risk of never being
recovered, and the people literally roared as the general, looking in
good health, though older and greyer than when Henty last saw him in
1859, rode along the ranks of the seven thousand or so of volunteers
that he was about to review and passed on, waving his hand in reply to
the cheering, as if thoroughly appreciating the greeting, much as he did
during his reception in London.

The town seemed afterwards to be swarming with his soldiers.  It
appeared as if two out of every three persons in the streets upon close
examination proved to be Garibaldians--close examination was necessary,
for it needed research to make sure that they were volunteers,
consequent upon the fact that in many cases anything in the shape of
uniforms was wanting.

As a rule their uniform, he points out, should have been the familiar
red shirt, belt, and dark-grey trousers with red stripe, surmounted by
red caps, with green bands and straight peaks.  In one of his early
letters at this stage Henty describes the incongruous nature of the
men's dress.  Perhaps one-fourth would have the caps; another fourth
would look like the ancient Phrygians or the French fishermen.  Perhaps
one-third would have the red shirts; possibly nearly half, the
regulation trousers; and where uniform was wanting they made up their
dress with articles of their usual wear--wide-awakes, hats, caps of
every shape, jackets, coats black and coloured.  Some were dressed like
gentlemen, some like members of the extreme lower order, altogether
looking such an unsatisfactory motley group as that which old Sir John
Falstaff declared he would not march with through Coventry.

But in spite of this there seemed to be the material for a dashing army
amongst these men.  They promised to make the finest of recruits, though
certainly the observant eyes of Henty told him that many of them were
far too young to stand the fatigue that they would be called upon to
suffer during the war, a number of them being mere boys, not looking
above fifteen.  But Garibaldi was said to be partial to youngsters, and
he liked the activity of the boys, who, he declared, fought as well as
men.

On the whole, according to Henty's showing, Garibaldi's volunteer troops
were very much the same as flocked to our best volunteer regiments in
London during the early days.  In short, the enthusiasm of the
Garibaldians was contagious, and Henty wrote of them with a running pen;
but his enthusiasm was leavened with the common sense and coolness of
the well-drilled organising young soldier, who made no scruple while
admiring the Garibaldians' pluck, self-denial, and determination to oust
the hated Austrian, to point out their shortcomings as an army and their
inability to prove themselves much more than a guerrilla band.

They were an army of irregulars, of course, but with a strong adhesion
based upon enthusiastic patriotism.  With such an army as this it may be
supposed that the followers of their camp sent order and discipline to
the winds, and the war correspondent had to thank once more that portion
of his athletic education that had made him what he was.  To use his own
words, out there in Italy he "thanked his stars" that his youthful
experience had made him a pretty good man with his hands.  He found
himself in his avocations amongst a scum of Italian roughs ready to play
the European Ishmaelite, with their hands against every man--hands that
in any encounter grasped the knife-like stiletto, ready, the moment
there was any resistance to their marauding, to stab mercilessly Italian
patriot or believer in the Austrian yoke, friend or foe, or merely an
English spectator if he stood in their way.  But to their cost in
different encounters these gentry learned that the young correspondent
was no common man, for Henty, in recording his experience with the
pugnacious Garibaldian camp-followers, says calmly and in the most naive
manner, and moreover so simply that there is not even a suggestion of
boastfulness or brag: "I learned from experiment that if necessary I
could deal with about four of them at once; and they were the sort of
gentry who would make no bones about getting one down and stabbing one
if they got the chance."  It was no Falstaff who spoke these words, for
they were the utterances of a perfectly sincere, modest Englishman,
albeit rather proud, after such a childhood, of his robust physique and
of the way in which he could use his fists or prove how skilfully he
could deal with an attacking foe and hurl him headlong, much in the same
sort of way as a North-country wrestler might dispose of some malicious
monkey or any wasp-like enemy of pitiful physique--comparatively
helpless unless he could use his sting.

Henty took all such matters as these quite as a matter of course.  He
felt, as he wrote, that a war correspondent to do his duty must accept
all kinds of risks in his search for interesting material to form the
basis of his letters to his journal.  But incidentally we learn about
semi-starvation, the scarcity of shelter, the rumours of the old dire
enemy, cholera, whose name was so strongly associated with past
adventures in the Crimea, risks from shell and shot, and ugly dangers
too from those who should have been friends.

For there is one word--spy--that always stands out as a terror, and it
was during this campaign that in his eagerness to obtain information he
approached so closely to the lines that he was arrested as such by one
of the sentries and passed on from pillar to post among the ignorant
soldiery.

In this case he had started with a friend for an investigating drive in
the neighbourhood of Peschiera, at a time when encounters had been
taking place between the Italian army and the Austrians.  Upon reaching
a spot where a good view of the frowning earth-works with their tiers of
cannon could be obtained, they left the carriage, and climbed a hill or
two, when they were attracted by the sound of firing, and hurrying on
they came to a spot where some of the peasants were watching what was
going on across a river.  Upon reaching the little group they found out
that it was not a skirmish, but that the Austrians were engaged in a
sort of review on the ground where there had been a battle a few days
before.

Henty felt that he was in luck, for he found that the peasants had been
witnesses of the battle from that very position and were eager to point
out what had taken place, the men giving a vivid description of the
horrors they had witnessed and the slaughter that had taken place.

Having obtained sufficient from one of the speakers to form an
interesting letter, he and his friend returned to their carriage and
told the driver to go back.  Henty had picked up a good deal of Italian,
but not sufficient to make himself thoroughly understood by the driver,
and, as is often the case, a foreigner of the lower orders failed to
grasp that which a cultivated person would comprehend at once.  The
consequence was that the man drove on instead of returning, and his
fares did not find out the mistake till they caught sight of a couple of
pickets belonging to the Guides, the finest body of cavalry in the
Italian service.  Seeing that they were on the wrong track, Henty
stopped the driver, questioned him, and then, fully understanding the
mistake, told him to drive back at once.  But the pickets had seen them,
and came cantering up.  Explanations were made, but the Guides were not
satisfied.  They had noticed the coming of the carriage, and had become
aware of what to them was a very suspicious act.  The occupants were
strangers, and had been making use of a telescope, which from their
point of view was a spyglass--that is to say, an instrument that was
used by a spy--while they might have come from the Austrian side before
ascending the hill.  This was exceedingly condemnatory in the eyes of a
couple of fairly intelligent men, but they treated them politely enough
when they explained matters and produced their passports.

A very unpleasant _contretemps_, however, began to develop when the
pickets said the passports might be quite correct, but they did not feel
justified in releasing the two foreign strangers, who might be, as they
said, Englishmen, but who were in all probability Austrians.  So they
must be taken to their officer, who was about a mile farther on.

It was a case of only two to two, and Henty's blood began to grow hot at
the opposition.  He was on the point of showing his resentment, but
wiser counsels prevailed; after all, it was two well-mounted and
well-armed soldiers of the flower of the Italian cavalry against a
couple of civilians, and, feeling that this was one of the occasions
when discretion is the better part of valour, especially as a seat in a
carriage was a post of disadvantage when opposed to a swordsman in a
saddle, he swallowed his wrath and told the driver to go in the
direction indicated by his captors.  For the first time in his life he
realised what it was to be a prisoner with a mounted guard.

The officer, who proved to be a sergeant, received them with Italian
politeness, listened to their explanations, and at the end pointed out
that the movements of the carriage, which might have come from an
entirely different direction from that which they asserted, and the use
of the telescope, looked so suspicious in the face of the nearness of
the enemy, that he must make them accompany him to his captain about a
couple of miles away.

Matters were beginning to grow dramatic, and the feeling of uneasiness
increased, for as a war correspondent no one could have realised more
readily than Henty that he was undoubtedly looked upon as a spy, and one
whom the sergeant felt he must in no wise suffer to escape, for he and
his companion were now being escorted by a guard of four of the Guides.

There was nothing for it, however, but to put a good face upon the
matter and keep perfectly cool, though, to say the least of it, affairs
were growing very unpleasant.  It was an accident the consequences of
which might be very ugly indeed, and this appealed very strongly to his
active imagination.  When he set off from the offices of the _Standard_
upon his letter-writing mission, no thought of ever being arrested and
possibly sentenced as a spy had ever entered into his calculations.

Henty gives the merest skeleton of his adventure, but as a man who was
in the habit of writing adventures and who possessed the active
imaginative brain previously alluded to, it stands to reason that in the
circumstances he must have thought out what he would have set down if he
had been writing an account of the treatment likely to be meted out to
an enemy's spy, especially to a hated Austrian, by the hot-blooded
patriotic Italians.

Some distance farther on in the warlike district, Henty and his
companion were escorted to a small village occupied by about a hundred
of the Guides and about twice as many Bersaglieri.  Here they were in
the presence of superior officers, before whom they were brought, and to
whom they again explained and produced their passports, and in addition
Henty brought out a letter of recommendation to the officers of the
Italian army, with which he had been furnished before starting on his
journey by the kindness of the Italian ambassador in London.

Here there was another example of the refined Italian politeness, and
Henty must have felt a strange resentment against this extreme civility,
so suggestive of the treatment that was being meted out to a man who was
being adjudged before an ultimate condemnation, for the officers
declared that the explanations were no doubt perfectly correct, but that
in the circumstances it was their duty to forward the two prisoners to
their general.  The general was about half a dozen miles away, while, as
unfortunately one of their men had been wounded, they must ask the
strangers to put their carriage at the service of the poor fellow, who
was suffering terribly from the jolting of the bullock-cart in which he
lay with five other wounded men, lesser sufferers.

Accordingly Henty and his friend had to take their places on the
bullock-cart with five wounded Austrian prisoners, and the procession
started.  A circumstance that was extremely ominous was that they were
preceded by another cart in which was another prisoner.  This man was a
spy about whom there was not the slightest doubt, for he had been caught
in the reprehensible act, and his fate would most probably be to have an
extremely short shrift and be shot in the morning.  These were facts
that impressed themselves very painfully upon the imagination of the
young war correspondent, who must have felt that going before the
general in such extremely bad company was almost enough to seal his
fate, and he felt the more bitter from the simple and natural fact that
it would be most likely impossible for him to send a final letter to the
_Standard_ to record that his unfortunate engagement was at an end.

The decision having been made as well as the change, matters looked
worse and worse, for the procession was now guarded by a line of about
thirty cavalry.  In front and rear marched a company of the Italian
foot, while the officers proceeded cautiously, as the road on their side
ran close to the Mincio, across which the Austrians might at any moment
make a sortie.

Then the proceedings grew still more dramatic and depressing, for
several military camps were passed, out of which the men came running to
look at the prisoners, and on hearing from the escort that one of the
party was a spy, they began to make remarks that were the reverse of
pleasant.  All the same the young captain in command of the Guides was
particularly civil to Henty, and did all he could to make his position
as little unpleasant as possible, chatting freely about the last
engagement and the part his squadron had taken in the fight.  But he was
much taken up in looking after his troops, and his English prisoners had
plenty of time for meditation as to their future prospects, and the
outlook was not reassuring.

At last head-quarters were reached, and after a short detention the
prisoners were taken before the General, Henty preserving all the time
the calm, firm appearance that he had maintained from the first; and in
all probability it was his quiet confidence that saved his life.

The General examined the passports and the Italian ambassador's letter
of recommendation, and at length in the most polite way set them at
liberty, but in a manner that suggested that Henty must grasp the fact
that in a state of war, if he went too close to the scene of action,
such incidents were bound to occur.

Their carriage was brought round, and in better spirits they started
back.  At the first town they reached they found the place was full of
troops.  Hungry and hopeful of a pleasant meal, they tried, but in vain,
at the different hostelries to get something to eat, though finally, as
a favour, they obtained a piece of bread, the last in the house, and
some wine.  They again started, but when they reached another town their
tired horses gave in, and they had to get out and walk.

It was now nearly eleven o'clock at night, and one may imagine the weary
tramp they had before they reached the Garibaldian pickets.  There they
were again stopped and were told that without the password they could
not enter the town, but must spend the night in their carriage.

More arguments, more explanations, but all proved in vain, and there was
a wretched prospect of the rest of the night being passed in misery; but
Fate seemed at last to have ceased to persecute them, for by good
fortune the officer of the night approached making his rounds, and after
some parley allowed them to accompany him back to the town.  Here,
however, more trouble awaited them, for on reaching their hotel at
midnight, utterly famished, and calling for supper, it was to find that
the Garibaldians had consumed everything.  All they could obtain was a
cup of coffee, without milk, and they retired to rest, Henty with the
feeling upon him that he had had a very narrow escape from being either
shot or hanged.

A culminating disaster, by the way, connected with the miserable march
to the presence of the general, who was to decide whether or not the war
correspondent and his companion were to be treated as spies, was the
disappearance of the valuable telescope with which Henty had come
provided for making observations in connection with the various
engagements between the Italian and the Austrian forces.  It was in the
carriage when it had to be given up for the use of the wounded, and, as
the owner very mildly puts it, "someone took a fancy" to his glass, and
he never saw it again, though he met with plenty of occasions when he
had bitter cause to regret its loss.


CHAPTER SIX.

THE SEARCH FOR AN ARMY AND A MEAL.

In his early days as war correspondent everything was fresh and bright,
and his letters display the keenness of his observation, especially in
the way in which he compares, with a soldier's eye, the uniforms and
accoutrements of the Italian soldier with those of the troops at home.
The special war dress, adapted to the season (June), was of coarse brown
holland or canvas, with a loose blue-grey greatcoat, and belt at the
waist outside; the cavalry, it being summer time, wore red caps with
tassels in place of helmets; the artillery had short jackets and canvas
trousers.  Everything seemed useful and serviceable.  But now the critic
comes in, for he writes: "I do not so much like the appearance of the
army when on the march."  The rate of march was about one-fourth quicker
than that of our own soldiers, and to keep up this swift pace the men
seemed to be too heavily laden, the greatcoats too hot and cumbrous, and
the knapsacks of calf-skin too heavy.  He begins to calculate what a
slaughter there must have been of calves to furnish skins of exactly the
same shade of brown for the four hundred thousand infantry of the
Italian army.

Then, to add to their load, the men's water-bottles, which were
barrel-shaped, were rather larger than those of the British soldier, and
each man also carried a canteen about the same size.  They had a blue
haversack well filled, and to crown all, at the top of the knapsack each
man bore the canvas and sticks which form a little tent under which the
Sardinian soldier sleeps during a campaign.

Of course he bore also his rifle, bayonet or sword, and ammunition,
which increased the weight he had to carry; but the tent added immensely
to his comfort, for whereas the British soldier has to pass the night as
best he can, perhaps in heavy rain on wet ground, to wake cold, wet
through, and unrefreshed, with the seeds of rheumatism in his limbs, the
Italian pitches his _tent d'abri_ and sleeps in comparative comfort.
During the campaign in the Crimea Henty often had occasion to note the
magical way in which the Sardinian camp sprang up.  The little tents
were pitched, the cooking-places established, arbours were made of
boughs of trees for the officers' mess-tents, and everything assumed a
general air of cheerfulness which contrasted favourably with the camps
of the English and of the French.

In these early days in Italy difficulties were many, and he laughingly
commences one letter by stating that his doings ought to be headed "The
Adventures of a War Correspondent in Search of an Army," for though
battalions, regiments, brigades, and even small armies were on the move,
the difficulty of getting upon their track was supreme.  He writes on
one occasion: "We drove through the village" (he was with a companion)
"down to the water-side."  Here lay the Po, a wide, deep river, as broad
as the Thames.  There was no bridge of boats.  How, then, had the
Italians crossed?  There was a sentry who looked at them peculiarly, and
who when asked if they could pass over to the other side shook his head.
They explained that they wished to join the camp, where they had
friends, but they could obtain no information.  Meanwhile their presence
had been attracting attention, and it was evident that they took Henty's
companion, who was wearing a red shirt, for one of Garibaldi's
lieutenants in disguise.  The people were appealed to for information as
to whether the Italian army had crossed there, and at last they managed
to gain the information that fifty thousand soldiers had crossed in the
night.  But that was all the news to be gleaned.

At last, however, they got upon the track of the army and well amidst
the fighting that was going on, and he writes to his paper that he
proposes during the next few days to give full accounts of the desperate
encounters between the Sardinian army, aided by the Garibaldians, and
the Austrians, "unless a bullet should put a period to my writing."

But, as stated in another place, where Henty deals with the effect
produced upon an observer by shells and the amount of mischief they do
in the open, a man who has his business to think of in connection with
reporting the movements of an army has not time to think of the risks he
runs, and Henty troubled himself but little concerning the destiny of a
stray bullet.  The old proverb says that every bullet has its billet,
the falsity of which statement has been often enough proved in modern
warfare by statisticians comparing the numbers of killed and wounded
with those of the ball cartridges expended during some fight, unless,
indeed, the word billet is taken to include the place where every
missile falls.  In fact, when dealing with the firing at Magdala, where
the British infantry made use of the breech-loading rifle for the first
time, Henty criticised severely the waste of cartridges by the men, who,
armed with the new easily-loaded weapon, scattered the bullets, without
stopping to aim, at a rate calculated to leave them without cartridges
in a very short space of time.

Speaking as a practised officer of the Commissariat Department, his
attention was much more drawn to the difficulties in connection with the
task of obtaining enough to eat.  As regards shelter and sleep, he was
ready enough to make shift with anything that offered of the former, and
many a time the open sky was his cover, and a blanket or waterproof
sheet his only protection from the rain.

He fared worst, save in the way of sociability, when following in the
track of those gallant, thoughtless Sons of Freedom, the Garibaldians.
On one occasion he and a companion made their way to one of the many
battlefields by the side of one of the Italian lakes, where the ground
that had been defended by the Garibaldians was covered with scattered
trees.  Beyond these the hillside was bare, but dotted with huge
boulders of stone, which had been taken advantage of by the Austrian
Tyrolese riflemen, and where they sheltered themselves to pick off the
young patriots.

Down below, the road ran by the shore of the lake, and here the Austrian
column had done their best to cut off the Garibaldians.  On passing
through this debatable ground the road rose considerably, and it became
necessary for the two correspondents to practise care lest they should
be mistaken for enemies, for by the side of the road were numbers of the
shelter arbours run up by the Garibaldians, and these were occupied, for
the sake of the shelter they afforded from the burning sun.

Here Henty describes the beauty of the scene across the valley at the
head of the beautiful lake.  Full in view were two villages, occupied,
the one by the followers of the great Italian patriot, the other by the
Austrians.  The mountain road had been guarded on one side by a low
parapet wall to save it from the rushing storm waters that swept down
from above after heavy rains, and here in two places ominous
preparations had been made in readiness to check any advance on the part
of the Austrians, the parapet being cleared away to form embrasures, out
of which grinned the muzzles of the field-pieces, ready to belch forth
their deadly shower of grape and round shot.  Here, too, was a deep
ravine coming down at right angles to the road, offering excellent
ground for a tactician to place his forces to advantage and deal out
destruction upon advancing troops.

Along the side of the ravine ran the road to the Italian village, for
which the two correspondents were making, in the hopes of obtaining food
and shelter.  As they passed on they found parties of Garibaldians
encamped along the whole length of the road, and their sentries were
ready to stop farther advance and demand their business and their
passes.  These, however, were found to be _en regle_, and they were
allowed to continue their journey to the village, which they soon found
was occupied by portions of a couple of regiments and a battalion of
Bersaglieri, by far the finest and most reliable portion of Garibaldi's
forces.

Henty and his friend, warned by previous experience, had taken the
precaution to carry supplies with them, the said supplies being of the
simplest description, a substance, in fact, which is always welcome to a
hungry man, made delicious by the addition of the proverbial sauce.  In
other words, they carried in their satchels portions of the homely
cake-bread of the country, upon which they depended, feeling no anxiety
about obtaining their share of the abundant spring water of the
district.

Thus provided, they had but one trouble, and that was as regarded
lodgings.  They went at once to the only inn of the village, to find it
closed.  This was discouraging, and they passed on, to find that almost
all the shops of the little place were also closed.  Checked by this,
they made for a group of the Bersaglieri, who seemed to be well supplied
with their little thin cigars, the pale-blue threads of smoke from which
curled lightly out in the evening sunshine.

The deeply-bronzed soldiery politely exchanged salutes as the travellers
questioned them about the prospect of finding a resting-place for the
night, the answer to which was: "Have you any bread?"

"Yes," replied Henty.  "Well, then," said a Garibaldian, with a smile
which showed his white teeth, "you may think yourselves very lucky,
signori, for we have had none to-day, and though we have had notice that
some will come in this afternoon, it is more likely that it will not."

This was disconcerting; but feeling that they could travel no farther
they determined to persevere, in the hope that something might turn up;
and if matters did prove to be at the worst they still had their open
carriage, which would, at all events, with its cushions make sleep more
easy, and keep them off the ground.

They had given a lift to one of the Garibaldians, and though amused by
their predicament, he laughingly tried to assist them by suggesting that
they should go on, and stop and knock at every door until they found
someone who would give them a lodging.  The notion seemed to be good,
and to carry out the Italian's suggestion they drew up at the
best-looking house they could see, and knocked boldly at the door.

This was opened by an elderly priest, who raised his eyebrows in wonder,
and glanced at the carriage and its occupants, and then at the
Garibaldian who was acting as their guide, when an eager conversation
ensued in the soft fluent Italian tongue.  The guide, speaking with
energy, explained with enthusiasm that those whom he had brought to
claim the priest's hospitality were two English gentlemen, whose hearts
were in the Italian cause, and who, much interested, had come out on
purpose to see the war; they were weary with their long journey and
sought a refuge for the night--a lodging for which they were perfectly
ready to pay with the customary generosity of their nation.

It was all very flowery, but most effective, for the priest smiled and
bowed and bade them enter, declaring his readiness to place a room at
their service, but shrugging his shoulders as he told with much
gesticulation how he lamented that owing to the exactions of the
Austrians, who had been there only the week before, and many of whom had
been quartered in the house, he had nothing in the way of food to offer
them; however, anything they could procure his servants would cook.

Perhaps it was due to perseverance having been rewarded and to having
gained a lodging that, hungry though they were, they began to contemn
their supply of bread.  Surely, they thought, in a village like this it
should not be impossible to find something more tasty, now that fate had
provided them with a cook.  So they sallied out, and leaving the more
frequented streets, which swarmed with the hungry volunteers, they
turned down first one lane and then another with no result.  At length
Henty, tired by his journey, was beginning to feel a return of the
despondency which attacks a hungry man, when he stopped short, catching
his companion by the arm and holding up his hand, for from a small house
on one side of the lane he heard a familiar suggestive sound, which is
precisely the same in the boot of Italy as it is in some rustic English
county.  It was the welcome cluck of fowls, shut up somewhere behind
bars for safety.  This promised a prize if negotiation were carried to a
successful issue, and hands involuntarily plunged into pockets, to be
followed by the faint and smothered chink of coin.  Money should be able
to purchase poultry at some price or other, even in times of war; if
not, as it was a time of war, and as the two young Englishmen were upon
a foraging expedition in a foreign country, why should they not--

Dark thoughts suggested themselves, and visions of a bright fire and a
browning chicken began to dawn and sharpen the rising appetite, but they
were dissipated at once by the opening of the door, at which they had
loudly knocked.  An animated parley commenced with the occupant of the
cottage, the said parley ending at last in the correspondents becoming
the masters of a couple of fowls, whose united ages, by the way, they
found, when they came to eat them, must have been a long way on towards
the age of one of themselves.

But all the same they felt satisfied in their ravenous condition at
having obtained even these world-worn birds at only about five times
their proper price, especially as on returning towards the priest's
house they again encountered the friendly Garibaldians, who had been
less fortunate than themselves.

There was still another drawback, that which comes to a hungry man even
though he has obtained a whole fowl to himself, and this was the waiting
while it was cooked.  While this was in process Henty had to try and
curb his impatience by examining the beauty of the scenery.  But at last
the repast was ready, and their friend the priest made them up beds, on
which they passed the night in a far more luxurious manner than they had
anticipated.


CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE BATTLE OF LISSA.

There were times when Henty had to take shelter from the Austrian fire,
and others when he found himself exposed to that of the friendly army,
whose skirmishers, made plainly visible by their scarlet shirts, began
to send up little puffs of smoke from behind hedges and amongst trees,
while crack! crack! the reports of the rifles rang out and echoed down
the ravines, to die away amongst the distant hills.

Then, too, one of his narrow escapes happened when he was on his way to
Brescia.  He had some difficulty in getting there, for every vehicle was
requisitioned for the public service, and he thought himself extremely
lucky in being able to get his luggage sent on, leaving him free to
undertake the walk of some five-and-twenty miles.  This was no serious
undertaking to a well-shod athlete, being only one-fifth more than a
tramp across our own Dartmoor, but with this difference, that the home
walk would be through the crisp bracing air some fifteen hundred feet
above the sea, while here the labour was very heavy, the heat of the
Italian July sun being tremendous.

However, just when he had proceeded half-way on his journey, and was
suffering severely from the torrid air, which felt too hot to breathe,
he, little anticipating what was to prove the outcome, congratulated
himself upon what he looked upon as a stroke of luck, for, hearing
wheels behind, he drew up by the side of the road, to stand panting and
wiping his streaming brow, signing to the military driver of a
government cart.  This man willingly agreed to give him a lift as his
destination was the same, and explained that he was going to fetch a
load of ice for the benefit of the wounded.

It was rough travelling, but the change from the labour of tramping the
road, which seemed to return the heat of the sun with fivefold power,
was delightful, and the rattle and bumping of the clumsy cart by
contrast became almost an exquisite pleasure.

In this way five more miles were added to those which he had walked, and
in describing the adventure which followed, Henty naively remarks that
doubtless he should have ridden happily the whole distance into Brescia
had not the ill-groomed, blind mare which drew the cart, suddenly
conceived that she was being ill-treated by the addition of this
stranger to her load.  She accordingly stopped short and began lashing
out most viciously, nearly breaking the arm of the soldier who was
driving, and then dashed off at full speed.  Seeing that she was blind,
her course was not a very long one, and before they had gone far down
the mountain road which gradually grew more and more shelf-like, the
mare's flight became wildly erratic, until she checked herself most
painfully by running her head against the rocks which rose up on their
right.  After holding his breath for some time Henty relieved his
overburdened chest in a deep sigh, for he had been debating in those
brief minutes whether he should not risk everything and trust to his
agility to spring out.  He now, however, began to breathe freely, and,
dropping down from the cart into the road, he stared about him at his
position, and realised how very near he had been to bringing his
correspondent's task to a sudden end.  Had the mare in her blindness
turned to the left instead of the right, horse, cart, and its occupants
would have gone headlong over the low protecting parapet at the side,
deep down a stony precipice, with only one result.

In his matter-of-fact way Henty goes on to say: "This was not a thing to
be tried twice, and I once more set off to walk, and in a mile came to a
village, where by great luck I found a vehicle which brought me into
Brescia in safety."

In his eagerness to obtain the fullest information about the military
proceedings between the opposing armies, Henty never spared himself.
Wherever there was an engagement pending, or taking place, if it were in
the slightest degree possible he would be there, running all risks, and
at any cost; so that when the news came of the possibility of there
being a naval engagement between the Italian and Austrian fleets, it was
only natural that with his sailor-like proclivities Henty should wish to
be present.

As we have seen, he was well provided with introductions and credentials
which facilitated his being with the army; but these hardly seemed
likely to benefit him much with the navy.  However, he was not the man
to be daunted by difficulties.  If a naval fight did take place, it was
bound to be one of special interest, for though for years past the
old-fashioned wooden walls and two- and three-deckers of this and other
countries had been gradually changing into armour-clads, this was to be
the first occasion when an encounter would take place between the
ponderous monsters.  It was an event which would prove, not only to
scientists but to their captains and crews, how they would behave.

The question that arose, therefore, was how the representative of the
_Standard_ could get on board one of the vessels.  Doubting what
reception would be given to one who announced himself as a war
correspondent, Henty proceeded, sailor-like, upon another tack.  After
the training he had gone through and the work he had done, he considered
himself justified in posing as an engineer eager to grasp exactly what
would take place under fire, and in this character, as a scientific man,
the difficulty was solved, for he was allowed to be present at the naval
battle which took place in the Mediterranean off Lissa, the principal
island of Dalmatia, some forty miles from the mainland, on the 20th of
July, 1866.

It was no trivial affair, but one as worthy of notice as any of the
great battles of history, for the Italian fleet which set sail consisted
of twelve iron-clads and eight wooden frigates, with their attendant gun
and despatch boats.

The island was strongly fortified by the Austrians, and the battle began
with an attack upon the forts, which responded fiercely, and the grim
reality of the encounter was soon learned by those on the iron-clads
when shells began to burst on board.  But this attack was only in
anticipation of the coming of the Austrian fleet, which was soon after
signalled as being in sight, and its formidable nature was evident
directly it approached.  Its three lines were composed of seven
iron-clads, one wooden ship of the line, five wooden frigates, two
corvettes, and twelve gunboats, the last mentioned carrying six guns
each.

The two fleets were not long in coming to close quarters, and it was
soon proved that sailors could fight as well in iron-clads as in the
towering old wooden craft of yore.

The thunder was deeper from the much heavier modern guns, the impact of
the modern missiles (elongated bolts, not balls) and the crash of the
bursting explosive with which they were charged far more awful; but
amidst the noise, confusion, and deafening explosions the spectator
could grasp but little of what was taking place outside the vessel he
was on.

There was a certain grim novelty about being rammed, and the shock sent
everyone who was not holding on, prostrate, convinced, or at least quite
ready to imagine, that the vessel struck must be sent to the bottom.
But this portion of the encounter did not prove to be so damaging as was
anticipated, probably owing to the close quarters into which the two
fleets were brought, and to the want of impetus of the striking ship.
In fact, as the broadsides were exchanged, and the vessels were passing
and repassing each other, they were in such close neighbourhood that at
times the muzzles of the guns almost touched each other, and the effect
was terrific.  Numbers of men were killed on board the vessel upon which
Henty made his mental notes.  Shells crashed upon the iron armour, and
were in some cases thrown off, but others passed in through the port
holes and burst inside, committing terrible havoc, while at one time a
broadside was received which glanced off.  A vast amount of damage was
done, though, when they ran stem on to the nearest opponent with an
awful crash and then backed off, to see dimly through the smoke that the
Austrian adversary was evidently sinking.

The result was that the Battle of Lissa supplied ample proof of the
consequences following an encounter between two iron-clad fleets; but it
was days after the noise and turmoil of the battle were at an end that
Henty found an opportunity to pay a visit to the Italian fleet with the
object of ascertaining how the various systems of iron-plating had borne
the hammering of the shot and shell during this novel sea-fight.

His first visit was to a vessel of nearly six thousand tons burden, and
before going on board he was pulled slowly round her, stopping from time
to time to examine the shot marks in her side.  And now it was
surprising to see how little damage had been done.  The shot had made
round dents of four to five inches in diameter, and from one to two and
a half inches deep, but the marks made by the shells in the armour-plate
were more ragged, some of the dents being from eight to twelve inches in
diameter, rough and uneven, while, when a shell had struck where the
plates joined, pieces were broken completely off.  Altogether, as far as
her iron armour was concerned, this vessel, which had been engaged for
more than an hour with two or three Austrian iron-clads, came out of the
ordeal remarkably well.  Not one of her plates was penetrated, cracked,
or seriously loosened; but on getting round to her stern her weak point
was at once noticeable, and that was the rudder, which was quite
unprotected.  Some six or seven feet of the unarmoured stern also was
quite exposed, a fact which resulted in the loss of a sister ship, whose
rudder was disabled almost at the beginning of the contest, so that she
soon became an easy prey to her adversaries.

In the case of the _Re de Porto Gallo_, the vessel Henty visited, her
iron-plating was covered with a casing of wood, some nine inches thick,
to a height of two feet above the water-line, and upon this her copper
sheathing was fastened.  The whole of her port bulwark, with the
exception of some fifty feet at the stern, was carried away by a
collision with the adversary, the two vessels grinding together along
their whole length.

On mounting to the deck, Henty goes on to say, he first began to see to
what a terrible fire she had been exposed.  Her rigging had been cut to
pieces; black ragged holes where shells had struck and burst were to be
seen; her boats were completely smashed to pieces.

In the case of another vessel, the shot and shell marks were rather
deeper, and the dents and ragged marks of the shells indicated that she
had had to encounter heavier metal, while Henty's keen scrutiny showed
him that the iron-plating which protected her must have been of a much
more brittle nature; but even here it was quite plain to him that the
protection afforded by the ponderous iron plates was most effective, and
it was remarkable, considering how close the adversaries had been
together, that more serious damage had not been done.

In noticing Henty's account of the iron clothing of the Italian fleet,
and the effect upon the ships of the enemy's guns, it must be borne in
mind that some forty years have wrought vast changes in naval warfare,
and it can easily be conceived how different would have been the havoc
wrought if the encounter had been with the armament of such a vessel as,
say our own unfortunate _Montagu_, or the _Sutlej_, with the twin
occupants of its revolving turrets and the ponderous bolt-shaped shells
they could hurl.

These investigations appear to have been of the greatest interest to the
young correspondent, but he was not satisfied; the sailor within him
made itself heard.  He was satisfied with the value of armour-plates in
protecting a man-of-war, but he wanted to know how, plated with these
ponderous pieces of iron, such vessels would behave in a heavy sea.

He had not long to wait, for he wrote directly afterwards that there had
been a heavy squall, and one of the iron-clad fleet had had to run for
the harbour, rolling so much from her weight, and shipping so much
water, that she went down; but, fortunately, all hands were saved.

There had been a day of intense heat.  The next morning it was hot and
close without a breath of wind, and Henty states that he had been rowed
across the harbour for his morning dip.  At that time there was not a
ripple upon the water, but on his return at nine o'clock the sky was
becoming a good deal overcast, while about half-past ten he was a
witness of one of the squalls peculiar to the Mediterranean, and made
familiar to old-fashioned people in the words and music of "The White
Squall."  Sheets of water, without the least preliminary warning,
dropped suddenly from the clouds; the furious wind tore along, driving
before it every light object; outdoor chairs and tables were swept away,
and the wind was master of everything for about twenty minutes.  When
the fierce storm had passed on, and the rain had ceased, he, knowing
what the consequences of such a raging tempest must be, hurried down to
the landing-place to note what the sea had done.

He was astounded.  His first looks were directed at the iron-clads.
They were lying at anchor, and rolling bulwark-deep in so alarming a
manner that it was fully proved to him that, had necessity forced them
to go into action, they could not have opened their port-holes to work
their guns, for had they done so they would certainly have been swamped.

Nature seemed to be mocking at the ponderous vessels, and green seas
were rushing completely along the decks of the iron-clad which
afterwards foundered.

He could see at the time by means of a telescope that the crew were
engaged in dragging tarpaulins over her hatchways, while from the
funnels of the whole fleet dense clouds of black smoke were rolling up,
as the engineers were evidently working hard to get up steam, so as to
relieve the strain upon their anchors, or to enable their captains to
shift their berths.  Later he could see that several of the vessels had
taken shelter in the harbour, but the _Affondatore_ was still in her
berth, with her engines hard at work going ahead to relieve the strain
upon her anchor.

Speaking as one accustomed to the sea, he was under the impression that
the captain was afraid to make for the harbour, outside which the vessel
lay, for to have done so would have necessitated his exposing her
broadside to the tremendous waves, which, though the sea had somewhat
subsided, still swept right over her bows.  These were now apparently
two or three feet lower than the stern, so that at the utmost the
ponderous vessel was only six feet out of the water altogether, and she
looked as if she had taken a great deal of water on board.

At length, as Henty watched, he began to see that she was changing her
position.  Her head turned slowly towards the harbour, her main-sail was
set to steady her, and she began to steam slowly in.  But in spite of
the sail that had been hoisted she rolled heavily, and by degrees seemed
to have lost all power of riding over the waves, which now made a clean
sweep over her, until at times he lost sight of her bow for some seconds
together.

At last, after expecting from time to time to see her founder, he saw
that she had reached the harbour in safety, to anchor just inside the
end of the mole, some three hundred yards from shore, and, growing
excited as he felt in doubt about her position, he jumped into a boat
and pulled out to her, to find that her bow was not above two feet out
of water, while her stern was a foot higher than it had been on the
previous day.  In spite of man-of-war order, a good deal of excitement
evidently prevailed.  The crew were busily engaged in relieving her bows
by carrying all weight as far aft as possible, and evidence of the peril
of her position was plainly shown by the engines being hard at work
pumping.

So he began to feel hopeful that as the vessel was now in still water
she would be safe, but the hope was vain.  Either recent repairs over
the shot holes received in action had given way, or some of her upper
plating, weakened by a shot, had opened with the strain.  Whatever was
wrong, as Henty watched he could see that she was getting lower in the
water, which in little more than another half-hour was level with her
bow.

Then it was that, feeling that it was impossible to do more, orders were
given which resulted in the boats being lowered, and with discipline
well preserved they were manned, while launches came out to her
assistance and took off the crew to the last man.

It was a painful scene which soon followed.  The grand vessel's bow was
now some distance below the surface, while the stern still maintained
its buoyancy; but all at once, as if the iron-clad monster were making a
desperate struggle for life, she gave a sudden heavy roll before
steadying herself, and remained in her proper position with only a
slight list to starboard.  Then she sank slowly and calmly, and all was
over with the gallant ship.

Henty described at length the battle of Lissa, of which no better
account could have been given than that of this unbiased spectator; but
upon the appearance of a lengthy official report, he did not hesitate to
turn stern critic and fall foul of the brag and bombast which disfigured
its columns.  No doubt to flatter Italian pride this was so full of
inflation, that the English correspondent flatly compared it with the
never-to-be-forgotten narrative delivered by the stout knight to Prince
Hal and his companions.


CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE END OF THE WAR.

Henty writes of Brescia as a Garibaldian town, that is to say, a town
garrisoned by volunteers, and after being there for some days gaining
knowledge of these patriots, he takes advantage of the occasion to
attempt some description of their state.

At one time he found the station crowded as if the whole population had
assembled, and he explains the reason of the unusual scene.  A train of
enormous length had just entered the station crammed with red-shirted
volunteers, who were being received with tremendous cheers, which they
responded to as lustily.  Then ensued an affecting scene, for numbers of
the regiment had friends and relations in the town who were searching
eagerly from carriage to carriage enquiring if they were safe.

The train was only to stop for ten minutes, and the men were not
supposed to alight; but no orders could keep them in, and a scene of
wild embracing, handshaking, and kissing ensued, mingled with eager
enquiries after relatives in other regiments, good wishes, and
farewells.  Then the station bell rang and the train moved on, the
soldiers waiting till the last moment and then jumping on as it was in
motion, so that as it moved out of the station it presented an
extraordinary aspect, men in scarlet shirts leaning out of every window
and standing on the foot-board the whole length as closely as they
could, while others were even on the roofs, and all waving their hands
and cheering.  He heard afterwards that some of the men in their
enthusiasm and excitement rode the whole of their journey upon the
steps, while three or four in the various trains were killed from
leaning too far out and striking their heads against the abutments of
bridges.

The commissariat arrangements, into which as a matter of course he would
be prone to enquire, were, he declares, vile.  In fact, he says the
arrangements for feeding these poor fellows were, like all other matters
connected with the volunteers, shamefully bad.  Some of them, in a three
days' journey, had no food but bread and cheese and a little wine.

At another town he found the place crowded with Garibaldians, who had
taken possession bodily of the inn he reached.  Tables were spread out
in the court-yard, at which parties were sitting; upstairs and down the
inn was thronged.  The landlady and waiters received their English
visitors with an air of languid indifference very different from their
customary manner.  At the first complaint Henty was assured that for
three days and nights they had not rested, and that as fast as one
regiment of the volunteers went off another took its place.  The men
were all famished by long fasting in the train, and only too glad to sit
down to a regular meal again.

Here he found that although the Garibaldians were better clad than when
he first encountered them, for they had all got red shirts, and caps of
some shape or other, many of them were sadly neglected.  Some were
almost shoeless, others had only just previously received their arms.
Moreover, with the exception of the Bersaglieri regiments, which had ten
rounds of ball cartridge each, no ammunition whatever had been supplied.
They were in a melancholy slate for an active force just taking the
field--no shelter tents, so that they had to sleep in the open air, and
most of them had only one blanket to serve as a cloak in the daytime and
a cover at night.

Some of them had not even this poor protection, and had to sleep on the
ground, however wet the night, with no other protection than their red
shirts and trousers.  Fortunately for them, they had patriotic faith and
enthusiasm; but there was no ambulance train or any accommodation
whatever for the wounded, and, speaking generally, the commissariat
arrangements were so bad that it was no unusual thing for a regiment to
go all day without food.

The result was indignation on the part of the volunteers at the
scandalous treatment they were receiving; but this only made them still
more desirous to get at the enemy and show that, ill-used though they
were, when it came to fighting they could do as well as the line.  For
it seemed that there was considerable jealousy and ill-feeling between
the two services, the Garibaldians believing firmly that the treatment
they were receiving was caused by those in authority, and when the news
came of a disastrous defeat of the regular troops, it was received by
the volunteers with something like satisfaction and a full belief that
they would do better when their turn came.

"Indeed," says Henty, "it must be owned that they had very much more
than a sufficiently good opinion of themselves, for they firmly believed
that they could defeat anything like an equal number of Austrians, even
though the latter were provided with artillery, as they would be."

Henty learned from the plucky fellows that they did not believe much in
the value of ball cartridges, but pinned their faith entirely on the
bayonet, against which weapon he did not believe that they would be able
to stand for an instant.  His opinion was that if the Garibaldians came
upon a body of the well-drilled Austrians in a steep place, or where
they were in confusion, the volunteers' impetuous onslaught would be
irresistible; but on the other hand, he could not believe that out on
the plain disorderly rushes could ever break the Austrians' steady steel
lines.

At this time a battery of mountain artillery was attached to Garibaldi's
command; but the guns were so clumsy and the carriages so primitive that
Henty believed they were not likely to prove of much assistance, and,
continuing his remarks about the uniformity and aspect of the
Garibaldian troops, he grimly notes that consequent upon sleeping upon
the wet ground, the red shirts were beginning to lose their original
brilliancy of colour.  He has, though, a few words of praise for the
volunteer cavalry, the Guides, who were extremely useful as vedettes.
Their grey-blue uniform with black cord braiding, natty scarlet caps and
high boots, gave them a very soldierlike appearance, while for night
duty they had very long cloaks of the same colour as the uniform, and
lined with scarlet.

Henty had always words of praise for the unquenchable pluck of the
Garibaldians, the indomitable determination that, in spite of bad
drilling, clumsy discipline, and bad leading, finally led them to
success.  Garibaldi himself, however, came in for criticism, for he
declares, after recording a wound that the general had received, that it
was greatly to be regretted that he should expose himself to danger, and
that his young officers should be so eager to do the fighting themselves
instead of steadying their men and leading them.

Then again he attacks the commissariat in his customary, vigorous way,
while reporting after one of the fights the wantonness which could send
three thousand men from a town to march twenty-five miles without
breakfast to begin with or supper to finish with, this being only a
common specimen of the commissariat arrangements.  "Certainly," he seems
to growl, in a quotation, "somebody ought to be hanged; I do not know
who it is, nor do I care, but such mismanagement has, I believe, never
been equalled.  All the same," he says, "the volunteers take it with
wonderful good temper."

Picturesque, he says, as was the appearance of the Garibaldian camp, so
bright and gay with the scarlet shirts of the soldiery and the green
arbours, that it looked like a gigantic military picnic, it was the
abode of as badly a fed set of men as were to be found in Europe.  A
little bread or biscuit and soup, doled out at the most uncertain
intervals, with occasionally meat and frequently nothing at all, was the
food which the government of Italy bestowed upon her volunteers, many of
whom had left luxurious homes to fight her battles; and in some cases
the men were so reduced from weakness that at certain stations many of
them had to be taken into hospital.  The poor fellows were fed, when fed
at all, with a mixture with bread swimming in it which was called soup,
but which was utterly innocent of meat in its composition, and tasted
simply of tepid water; a sort of raw sausage, flavoured strongly with
garlic, and a mess of either rice or macaroni, with something called
meat in it, but utterly untastable; and yet this same food was at one
time, while Henty was with the volunteer army, all that he could depend
upon for himself--that or nothing.  Campaigning with the Garibaldians
was sorry work, but, soldierlike, Henty tightened his belt and fought
his way on with the volunteers in expectation until they won.

Still with the head-quarters of Garibaldi, and in the midst of the heat
of an Italian July, Henty writes again in the midst of warfare, with all
day long the boom of cannon and the sharp crack of musketry sounding in
his ears.  And as he writes, he says, the confusion outside, the talking
of innumerable Garibaldians under the window of the humble room of which
he thinks himself fortunate to call himself master for the time, the
rumbling of carts, the shouting of the drivers, and the occasional call
of the bugle, all remind him that he is in the midst of war on a large
scale.

The heat has been terrible; not a breath of wind stirring, and the
cicadas in the vineyards which line the roads through which he has
passed have been in the full tide of song.  "The noise," he says, "that
these insects make on a hot day is something astounding.  It is a
continued succession of sharp shrill sounds such as might be made by a
child upon a little whistle."  He asks his reader to imagine an army of
children, thousands strong, lining the road and all blowing upon these
whistles, "and you will have an idea of the prodigious thrill of sound
produced by myriads of these creatures."

"Zeno," he says, "the old Greek philosopher who was mated to a shrew, is
reported to have exclaimed: `Happy the lives of the cicadas, since they
all have voiceless wives.'  But I think that it is equally fortunate for
humanity in general, for if the female cicadae were in any way as
voluble as the males, it would be impossible to exist in the
neighbourhood of the vineyards at all without losing one's sense of
hearing."

But insects, the boom of cannon, the rumble of tumbrels, and the crackle
of musketry notwithstanding, the war correspondent's communications had
to be written, and two of his most interesting pieces of news, which are
rather ominous in sound, are that the general's son, Ricciotti
Garibaldi, who is serving as a private in the Guides, is at present ill,
though nothing serious is apprehended, while Garibaldi's wound still
causes him great pain and inconvenience.  He can do nothing for himself,
but he is the enthusiastic general still, even though he has to be
lifted from the sofa upon which he lies all day, and carried by four men
to his carriage, the anxiety he feels at the state of affairs greatly
retarding his recovery.


CHAPTER NINE.

IMPRESSIONS OF ITALY.

In what had now become a sight-seeing perfect holiday time for Henty,
prior to his being present to witness the entry of the Italian troops
into Venice and the departure of the Austrians, Ravenna, with its
antiquities, its museums and traditions, was too great an attraction to
a literary man to be passed over.  He appreciated to the full the ruins
of the old Christian churches, the cathedrals, the traces of the Roman
emperors, the glorious fir woods with their pleasant shades, and raked
up memories of poet and student who had been attracted there in their
time, such as Dante, Boccaccio, and Dryden.  All three have written
their recollections, while Byron worked there, finding other points of
interest beyond its quiet charm.  For it was in Venice that he wrote
_Marino Faliero_, _The Two Foscari_, _Cain_, and other poems.

But every city of the Italian plains had its attractions for Henty, and
his writings at this date are one long record of a country which teems
with memories of the past.

Much as he was interested in the fairs and markets and antiquities,
Henty was too much of the sailor and soldier not to be attracted by a
little scene at Ancona on his last morning there, and that was in
connection with the landing from the fleet of a body of sailors for
certain evolutions upon the parade.  They brought ashore twelve light
guns, apparently about five-pounders, each manned by six Italian Jacks.
These guns were promptly taken to pieces, and a couple of the men caught
up the gun, the rest the wheels, ammunition boxes and carriages, and
bore them down to the boats.  Then, at the word of command, they carried
them up again to the drill-ground, and in a little over a minute the
guns were put together, mounted, loaded, and ready to open fire, the
limber, in charge of two of the six men, standing a little in the rear.
The whole evolution was remarkably good, and the rapidity most striking.
At the word of command the guns were fired; they limbered up directly,
and the men attached a sort of harness which went across their chests,
and dashed off as fast as they could run till a halt was called, fresh
position taken up, the guns unlimbered, loaded, and discharged again in
an incredibly short space of time.

As Henty watched them the sailors seemed to be taking their task as if
it afforded them the greatest amusement, and to one who had never
witnessed any such drill before it appeared to be an exercise that ought
to be introduced to our own navy, which, as far as he knew, had not been
furnished with these light portable guns for landing operations, "for
there is no question," he says, "that they would be of immense service
if two or three of these little guns were added to every vessel of our
fleet."

This was, of course, prior to Henty's experience in connection with
Magdala and Ashantee, where he found our sailors on landing expeditions
in no wise behind those of the Italian fleet.  Later it came to his lot,
after his own war-correspondent campaigns were at an end, to deal with
correspondence, letters, and telegrams connected with the Boer war, in
which our Jacks performed wonders, not with toy guns, but with the
monsters on their specially-contrived carriages, under the manipulation
of Captain Hedworth Lambton and Captain Percy Scott, which startled our
enemies.

With ears relieved from the incessant roar of cannon to listen instead
to the ringing of joy-bells and the cheers which welcomed the
declaration of an armistice, Henty gladly availed himself of an
opportunity to visit the old Italian cities, so as to see what life was
like in these old-world places.  Much of the quaint and antiquated still
lingers round these towns, not only in the buildings, but in the habits
of the people, suggestive of the days when Shakespeare and his
contemporaries constructed their dramas, laying their scenes in Verona,
Venice, Padua, Mantua, and other places, the very names of which suggest
slashed doublets, rapiers, family enmities, relentless vendettas,
keen-bladed swords, stilettoes, bravoes, feathered caps, poisoned cups,
and all the rest.

Starting from Ancona, he went over to Sinigaglia, now upon the railway,
but formerly a Roman station, and later of considerable importance in
the Middle Ages, when war used often to rage between the states of the
Pope and the family of Malatesta at Rimini.  Here, too, Caesar Borgia
made his name infamous by causing the Condottieri, his allies, to be
strangled, an act of treachery suggestive of the massacre of the
Janissaries at Constantinople.

These names suggest old-world celebrity, but Henty had come over for a
change, sick for the time being of war and its rumours.  The bow-string
had been tight for some time, sending literary arrows speeding west, and
the fact that a rather famous fair was being celebrated attracted him,
in expectation of seeing what Italy would be like when its people were
_en fete_ at a function similar to our own old Bartlemy or Greenwich.

In visiting Sinigaglia, a place associated with such names as the above,
he fully expected to revel in the picturesque; but he found that the
Italians, troubled as they are with such terrible epidemic visitations,
have grown to pay greater respect to sanitary measures than did their
ancestors, and in consequence ancient ruins with their echoes of the
past do not receive the respect we pay to them in England.  He found one
grand old citadel, but the Italians had been behaving to it like
Vandals, or, to be more familiar of speech, like our honest old British
churchwardens when they distribute whitewash.  Other ruins, such as
nowadays we place under the care of some learned society, he found had
been patched up and turned to some useful purpose.

The fair was in full force, but by no means English-looking.  There were
no roundabouts, either steam or worked by expectant boys in return for
an occasional ride; no swings, no dramatic shows, no giants, no fat or
spotted ladies, no freaks such as our American friends accustomed to
Saint Barnum of show fame rejoice to see, no music, no noise.  It did
not seem at all like a fair; but he found other attractions in the large
town of about twenty-three thousand inhabitants, which was built as a
fort about a third of a mile from the almost tideless sea, which, after
the fashion of Venice, was connected therewith by a wide and deep canal.
This canal offered passage for good-sized vessels, and ran up right
through the town, all of which was very interesting from a commercial
point of view; but it was the middle of hot August, and the place had a
greater attraction for our traveller because it happened to be one of
the most fashionable watering-places of eastern Italy.  Henty here draws
attention to the great advantage the Italians possess in living on a sea
like the Mediterranean, where bathing-places can be erected, and where
at all times there is a sufficient depth of water to enable one so
desirous, to have a plunge without having to go lumbering out in one of
the miserable rickety boxes on wheels which we call bathing-machines.

The same advantages are offered in the harbour of Ancona, at which town,
at this period, Henty was making his head-quarters.  Here he found
floating baths represented by a chamber of about fifteen feet square,
into which the sea had free ingress, and also a larger bath big enough
for a swim, while if one were so disposed there was egress to the sea.

To return to Sinigaglia: seeing that it was fair time the streets were
furnished with awnings to keep off the sun, and the place was after all
very attractive, with its streets filled with women displaying their
baskets of goods for sale.  Being a fete day the peasantry had flocked
in from the surrounding country in their best and most picturesque
costumes of bright colours and snowy white, with their hair carefully
dressed in a peculiar fashion, and a plentiful display of gold necklaces
or ear-rings.  Their dark hair, warm complexions, and large dark eyes
all tended to form a very attractive scene.

Henty however always displayed a mind receptive of anything connected
with utility.  As a rule he looked out for matters concerning
sanitation, and while he condemned the vandalism, he had a word to say
here respecting the purifying effect of whitewash.  But in a place like
this, so intimately associated with the old and historical, it is
amusing to find that he takes a walk round the outskirts of the ancient
city, and very unpoetically notes that the hills about Sinigaglia would
gladden the heart of a London brickmaker if they could be dropped down
in the neighbourhood of the metropolis.  It stands to reason that he
must have had Southall in his eye, for he says that the Sinigaglia hills
are entirely composed of fine brick clay of apparently unlimited depth
and extent.

As far as the fair was concerned, Henty writes soon after from Rimini--
most poetic of names!--that he was glad that he went back to Ancona for
the fair in that town, for it differed entirely from that at Sinigaglia,
in that it was especially lively, amusing, and attractive.

"The fair," he says, "begins where Ancona ceases."  The attractions were
almost entirely devoted to the young, so that for the time being the
place was turned into an attractive toy-land.  The Grand Promenade of
Ancona, in the neighbourhood of the sea, and planted with rows of trees,
was the centre of interest.  The fair stalls, which were most abundant,
were small, but were made most attractive.  Each had its speciality, and
was, of course, thronged with eager, bright-eyed children.  One
contained drums only; the next military toys, small swords, guns and
pistols; the next would be all small carts; then came one with dolls'
furniture, most neatly made in japanned tin or iron.  A little farther
on the stalls were filled with the noisy playthings so dear to
children's hearts--whistles, trumpets, accordions, and rattles of the
most ingenious construction and maddening power.  Then, again, there
were stalls displaying the ingenuity and delicacy of Italian taste,
where they sold only dolls' head-dresses, the most jaunty little caps,
hats, and veils conceivable, quite an equipment, in fact, for the heads
of a whole troop of little fairies.

Then, again, there were many stalls with dolls dressed in the extreme of
fashion; but in a fatherly manner, suggestive of thoughts of home, he
goes on to say that "the dolls themselves would not at all come up to an
English child's idea of what such a toy ought to be, being all cheap
wooden dolls.  I did not see one made of wax in the fair."

Many of the toys exhibited were unquestionably German, similar to those
seen in our own bazaars, but some, particularly the drums, he noticed
were Italian.  It was easy to detect the difference in the colouring,
the paints used being of less clear and bright shades; and they were
unvarnished, which is seldom or never the case with German toys.  Round
these stalls the crowd of little people and their friends was constant.

Observant of the country again, Henty goes on to say, with thoughts of
home: "Children here have few amusements, few toys, and still fewer of
those charming story-books with which so many of our booksellers' shop
windows are full, especially about Christmas time."  It is worthy of
notice that this was in 1866, about two years previous to the production
of Henty's first boys' story, and over thirty years before the time
when, with scrupulous regularity, the booksellers' shop windows were
annually displaying two or more of his own productions specially written
for the young.

The parents and the friends seemed disposed to indulge the children to
the utmost upon this occasion, for all had their hands full of toys.
Boys drummed and blew trumpets and whistles till he was nearly deafened;
little girls clung tightly to the skirts of their mothers' dresses with
one hand, and with the other held out their new dolls admiringly before
them; and appeared to be continually questioning their friends as to
whether they were quite sure that sundry other purchases carried in
paper bags were safe.

It was a charming scene, for the stalls were lit up by candles, which
burned steadily in the serene summer air.  Nothing could have been more
attractive--the crowds, the pleasure of the children, the number of
well-dressed people in their varied refinements of fashion, and the
peasant women in their bright-coloured handkerchiefs, but many with no
other decoration to their heads save their abundant smooth and
neatly-braided hair.

Other picturesque features in the crowd were afforded by the soldiers,
sailors, and marines, with their round hats and drooping plumes of black
cocks' feathers, and the uniforms of the National Guards and officers of
all these services.

Passing onward, he came upon stalls significant of his being in a hot
country, for at these only fans were sold--fans of every size and
colour.  In Italy, it must be remembered, as in Japan, nearly everyone
carries a fan, and uses it instead of a parasol to shade the face when
walking and to cool the bearer when sitting down.

And now began the stalls of the vendors of more useful articles.  First
were the basket-makers and turners, trades which seemed to be generally
united, as if the women of the family pursued the one branch, the men
the other.  There were baskets of every size and form, from those which
might hold a lady's fancy-work, right up to the enormous holder in which
Falstaff himself might have been borne.

The turners' display of the works of their lathes was wonderful in
variety, and included wooden bowls, platters, distaffs, and spindles,
strings of buttons, bowls, and articles that were more the work of the
carving tool, in the shape of spoons, taps, and pegs.

Then there were stalls with articles made from horn instead of wood,
followed by displays of articles in iron and tin, notably small charcoal
stoves, coffee-roasting apparatus, and ladles, while last in utility
there were sieves of cane, wire, and horse-hair.  The variety was
wonderful.  Now the stalls were covered with hats--from the coarsest
straw or chip, to those once fashionable in England and worn by our
grandmothers under the name of Tuscan and Leghorn,--while a brisk sale
of cutlery was being carried on, men selling wooden-handled knives of
the cheapest kind, such as the peasants always have at hand.

Elsewhere there were copper cooking utensils in plenty.  Cooking in
Italy is almost always done in copper pans and pots, and there is no
cottage so poor that it has not its half-dozen, at least, of these
brightly kept vessels.

And now, where the crowd was thickest, Henty found that he had been too
hurried in his judgment of Italian fairs, for he found the old English
fair equalled, if not excelled.  Here were the shows and menageries,
with the outside pictures of terrific combats with impossible animals,
conspicuous among them being a snake, by the side of which the sea
serpent would sink into insignificance, engaged in the operation of
devouring a boat-load of Hindus, or so they seemed to be by their
complexion and costume.  This show boasted a band, while its neighbour
contained our old friends the wax figures, representing heroes of modern
times, among which he noted that, in remembrance of the Crimea, the
showman had done England the honour of placing Lord Raglan.  By way of
extra attraction the little exhibition was furnished with an organ and
cymbals.

If he had shut his eyes now, he says, he could almost have imagined
himself in England--the music, the shouting of the touters at the
booths, the blowing of trumpets and whistles, the beating of small
drums, all recalling home.  But there was one difference that was
unmistakable.  There was no pushing, no foul language; there were no
drunken people, no roughs, all of which appear to be the inseparable
elements of an English fair.

There were a great number of fruit stalls, which seemed to be doing a
good business among the lower orders, especially at the counters devoted
to the sale of slices of water-melon, which the people of Italy seem
never tired of eating.  Henty ventures to say they were very nice to one
who got used to them, but for his part, he declares he would just as
soon have eaten the same weight of grass.

When he left the place that night the proceedings were still in full
swing, and when he returned to it at six o'clock the next morning, there
was the same crowd as late the night before, and a brisk trade was still
going on.  Noticing again the vast number of fruit stalls, the thought
occurred to him that it was fortunate that there was no cholera in the
town, for if all the fruit that he saw in Ancona were consumed by the
people before it got bad, it would produce an increase of that epidemic
which was terrible to contemplate.  There were hundreds of cart-loads of
melons, water-melons, and peaches, which were poor tasteless things and
always picked too soon; he declares he never tasted a ripe peach while
he was in Italy.  Pears too, figs, and grapes were plentiful; but he
gives them no praise.

To his surprise and amusement, perhaps consequent upon Ancona being so
old-world a city, he came upon one relic of the past, and that was a
stall for supplying the matches such as our grandmothers used, such, in
fact, as used to be sold by every pitiful vendor in the streets, in the
shape of long thin strips of wood cut into a sharp point at each end,
dipped in melted sulphur, and then tied up in bunches like fans.  These
were, of course, the predecessors of the lucifer matches, as they were
called, which were sold in neat little boxes, with an oblong piece of
sanded card laid on the top.  This folded across, and between its folds
the match was drawn sharply, when it burst into flame.  These were soon
succeeded by a somewhat similar match, with the sand-paper a fixture on
the bottom of the box, and the priming of the match so increased in
inflammability that the ignition took place as at the present time, and
the name Congreve Light came in, the "light" soon dying out, and giving
way to Congreve or matches only.  Of course, those which Henty saw on
sale were for use in connection with the old-world flint and steel and
tinder-box.

Passing on that morning, he went through the Custom House, to find
beyond it the regular food market at its height.  Hundreds of neatly
dressed peasant women and girls were standing with their baskets before
them, ready to supply eggs, butter, cheeses, fowls, turkeys, ducks,
pigeons, and larks, for the most part alive, but doomed.  There were one
or two baskets which contained puppies, probably, however, not doomed,
at least, to be cooked.  But there were baskets in plenty containing
delicacies in the nature of molluscs!  He was within reach of the sea,
but they were neither oysters, scallops, mussels, cockles, nor winkles,
but the fine pale-shelled, spiral, Roman snails, that doubtless had been
captured in the moist eve or early morn when ascending the poles of some
vineyard.  Delicate, but not tempting to the English taste.

To do the fair thoroughly, Henty, before leaving, visited the cattle, to
find that the supply of horses was just then very small; but there was
the prospect that, directly peace was signed and the enormous transport
train paid off, horses would become as cheap in Italy as they then were
dear.

There was a large show, though, of the beautiful patient, docile,
draught oxen, which were fetching from twenty to thirty pounds a pair;
and with these he concluded his inspection of the two fairs.  He then
suffered a most Inquisition-like examination of his baggage, and started
for a visit to one of the smallest republics in the world, a country
close to the Adriatic shore, which had been for some time attracting his
attention.  This he hoped to see and report upon before the festivities
of peace should commence consequent upon the complete freedom of Italy,
or troubles should arise once more and make busy in other ways the war
correspondent's pen.


CHAPTER TEN.

THE VISIT TO SAN MARINO.

On his way to San Marino Henty found himself at Rimini.  This place is
the Ariminium of the Romans.  It was enlarged and beautified by Julius
and Augustus Caesar.  Here, too, in a.d. 359 the Aryan doctrine was
denounced.  As the centuries rolled by, the town fell into the hands of
the Lombards, and was given by the Emperor Otho to Malatesta, whose
family ceded it to the Venetians, from whom it was afterwards wrested by
the Popes, and it remained part of the Papal dominions till 1860.

It has its antiquities, the principal one being an arch erected in
honour of Augustus, and bearing still in perfect preservation the old
Roman carvings, representing on one side Jupiter and Minerva, on the
other, Neptune and Venus.

Another antiquity that took Henty's attention as being well worthy of
notice, from the way in which it brought back to his memory Westminster
School and his studies of the classics, was a short pillar in the
market-place with an inscription stating that Caesar stood upon it to
harangue his soldiers before passing the Rubicon.  Caesar, history
informs us, was a short stout man, and Henty's old studies led him to
believe that he could not have looked well upon that short column, upon
which he would probably have been lifted by the officers of his staff;
and somehow or other--perhaps the weather was not very genial--the
column did not impress him with any particular feeling of veneration.
His ideas ought to have been classic and stern; but it is strange, as he
says, what inopportune ideas strike one.  He approached the stone with a
thorough belief in it, prepared to picture Caesar aloft, and the
heavy-armed legionaries of the Roman cohorts standing armed, leaning
upon their spears, with the eagles they had carried triumphantly through
so many campaigns erect in their midst.  But as he came fully into sight
of the stone, the thought of the difficulty of getting upon it and of
Caesar's ungraceful figure brought to his mind the remembrance of H.K.
Browne's etching representing the immortal Pickwick standing upon a
chair, with one hand under his coat-tails and the other outstretched, as
he harangued the members of his club.  And all belief in the legend of
the stone faded away at once.  In fact, Henty was not an imaginative
man.  Neither was he a great humourist; but when he was in humorous vein
his humour was dry and good.

By the way, legend says that it was at Rimini that Saint Anthony
preached to the fishes when the people refused to hear him, and that San
Marino, who was a native of Dalmatia, across the Adriatic Sea, came over
and settled here.  He gave his name afterwards to the little republic
and to the mountain which Henty's driver pointed out to him--rising far
above all the hills in its neighbourhood, nearly fifteen miles away--at
the beginning of a very charming drive in an open carriage drawn by one
of those novelties that are not often let for hire--a very fair horse.

This curious little state is in its own way perfectly unique, and its
existence is the more singular from its being situated in Italy, though
for centuries in the Middle Ages that country was the scene of an
uninterrupted succession of wars.  The hand of every country was against
its neighbours.  Towns changed owners every few years; states were
swallowed up, conquered, reconquered, but San Marino has remained.

The law of strength was the only law recognised--that law which says he
shall take who has the power, and he shall keep who can; for the weakest
always went to the wall.  It is then most singular that this little
territory of about eight thousand inhabitants should have remained
intact for more than fifteen centuries, and that now, while all its
powerful neighbours have become merged into one great state, this tiny
republic should be the sole portion of Italian soil possessing a
separate autonomy.

History tells us that in the old Roman days, soon after the persecution
of the Christians by the Emperor Diocletian commenced, San Marino,
finding that there was no rest for his people in Rimini, led his little
flock out from that city and established a Christian colony at the
summit of the highest and most rugged mountain in that part of the
country, then probably a place surrounded by untrodden forests; and the
little state thus founded has remained separate ever since.

The road to San Marino led across an undulating and very richly
cultivated country, where the peasants were engaged gathering in the
grape harvest, which that year, from the extreme dryness of the early
part of the season, was the worst the people had ever known.  They were
also occupied picking the maize, which is so important an item of the
Italian farmer's crop.

Indian corn is a little better known now in connection with its
beautiful growth than when Henty paid his visit, but his description of
what was to him almost a novelty is still pleasant reading.  He tells us
how the plants are thinned out as soon as they appear above the ground,
and the blades are left to grow on about a foot apart in a climate where
they spring up to the height of about six feet.  The stalks, he says,
"for the first two feet above the ground are about the diameter of a
man's thumb, but towards the top they expand to a considerable extent."

He had seen maize growing in its early stage during his previous visits
to Italy, but never before having passed the hot season there, this was
the first time he had witnessed the harvest, and it was a matter of
surprise to him that such thin stalks could support the weight of a head
of maize.  But now to him the mystery was explained.  At about two feet
from the ground, at the time the plant flowers, the stem increases in
size, presently opens, and a thick shoot makes its appearance,
apparently composed of a compressed bunch of leaves.  This becomes
larger and larger, the leaves expand, open more and more, and spread out
like broad wavy blades of grass.  The head or cob of maize swells out
and forms at its summit a great silky pale golden tassel, while, as the
cob becomes larger and larger, much of the upper part of the stalk in
the process of the ripening dies and falls off.  Then the lower leaves
drop away, the grand beauty of the field of maize passes, and from the
time the crop is ripe until the harvest the field seems to be composed
of stumps with bunches of dead leaves at the top.  These leaves,
however, enclose the great solid, regularly formed or apparently
built-up head of maize, which is left drying as it stands in the torrid
sunshine, till it is cut off and carted to the farms.  At this stage the
Indian corn is taken in hand by the women and children of the family,
and the separate grains are picked off and exposed on cloths to dry
perfectly in the sun.

Passing the cultivated fields and crossing the little stream which forms
its boundary, Henty learned that he was in the Republic of San Marino,
that the circumference of the state was thirty-five miles, and that the
mountain, or crag as it should rather be called, rose almost in its
centre.  With the exception of the rock itself, every part was extremely
fertile and well cultivated, and of more value than land in the
surrounding country, on account of the absence of taxation and other
advantages peculiar to the republic, chief among which was the freedom
from military conscription.  Every male in San Marino is, it is true, a
soldier, but soldiering involves no fighting or absence from home.
Although all are liable to be called upon to serve in case of necessity,
only those under a certain age are on ordinary occasions called out.
The strength of this regular army of the republic is eight hundred men.
Of these, seven hundred form the National Guard; the remaining hundred
are the body-guard of the president.

They have their uniform of blue, the National Guard having red facings,
the body-guard yellow, the band white.  Then they have their national
flag of blue and white; and a police force administered by a chief and
five carbineers, whose uniform is dark blue with white cross-belts and
grey trousers, so that they look on the whole much like the carbineers
of the Italian service.  These five are, of course, always on duty, and
are regular salaried police.  The army only appears in uniform upon
Sundays and fete days, when the men are drilled; but the troops receive
no pay.

"We arrived," says Henty, "at the village of Serravalle.  Here the
carriage stopped, and I had to take my seat in a little pair-wheeled
trap drawn by a good-sized pony.  These berruchinos, as they are called,
are by no means comfortable, for instead of being boarded, the floor is
composed of a loose network of cords, which affords little rest for the
feet.  They have no dash- or splash-board, and you are consequently in
unpleasant proximity to the horse's heels, if it should take it into its
head to kick.  They have, besides, no rail or other rest for the back."
It was an intensely hot day, and at the village from which he made his
fresh start he was glad to accept the loan of an immense blue umbrella.
And now began an adventure.

They had ascended a steep hill, so steep that the driver got down and
walked, and he had not retaken his seat when, without the slightest
previous notice of its intention, and presumably induced thereto by the
bite of a fly in some more than ordinarily tender part, the wretched
little pony started off at full gallop.

At this time Henty was sitting quietly under the umbrella, tranquilly
smoking and chatting to the driver, when there was a sudden jerk.  His
feet having no hold and his back no support, the former flew up into the
air and his head went back.  Instinctively he made a desperate grasp at
the side rail with his unoccupied hand, but it gave way, and in an
instant he was on his back in the middle of the road with the blue
umbrella perfectly shut up beneath him.  Fortunately the trap was not
very high, and his bones were at that period of his life very well
protected, so in a moment he was on his feet again, much more astonished
than hurt.  Bearing the relics of the blue umbrella he pursued the trap,
which in spite of the efforts of the driver was going on at full speed,
dragging him after it, and it was three or four hundred yards from the
place where the pony started before the man was able to bring it to a
standstill.

A little scene ensued, for when he came up Henty found the driver
looking pale as death, and so much scared that it was with the greatest
difficulty he could be persuaded that his fare was not seriously hurt.

It was rather a remarkable escape; but Henty states that he was so
little shaken that he did not even suffer with a headache from the
effects.  Of course, however, the principal damage was to the blue
umbrella, and on his return to Serravalle he had a very lengthy amount
of talk and argument with the old lady, its owner, as to the amount of
compensation to be paid, for it was irretrievably ruined.

The rest of Henty's journey to the Burgo of San Marino, a village
containing about seven hundred inhabitants, was uneventful.  It is
planted at the foot of a precipice, at the top of which the old town,
which is populated to about the same extent, is perched.  It is a
remarkable mountain, rising as it does almost perpendicularly, and
therefore being a very suitable spot for the erection of a fortress in
the old dangerous times, for all around there lie nothing but softly
swelling hills, no other so suitable a defensive place occurring until
far back in the Apennines, another twenty-five miles inland.

The rock is about half a mile long, and to the east the face is
absolutely perpendicular, while to the west it has a gradual but still
rapid fall, the land being cultivated up to the very walls of the town
upon its summit.

There is no flat ground upon the top.  It is a mere narrow ridge, the
descent beginning from the very edge of the perpendicular east face.
When looking up the rock from the road all that is seen of the town are
three towers perched upon the three highest points, and the church.
None of the houses is visible owing to their position upon the west
slope.

Enquiries brought an introduction to one of the ancients of the place,
who acted as cicerone to strangers visiting San Marino, and during a
walk he was found to be charged with a pretty full description of the
politics and history of the little state.

Everything was in a delightful state of innocency, honour more than
money seeming to be generally the object sought.  There were two
captains-regent instead of presidents, who were allowed seventy-five
francs each during their term of office of six months.  The home and
foreign ministers were each paid two hundred and fifty francs for office
expenses, postage, etc.  The commander-in-chief of the army got honour
alone and not a sou besides, and apparently had to pay for his own
uniform.  Then came the highest paid officials of the republic.  These
were three, two physicians and one surgeon, who received thirteen
hundred and fifty francs, or fifty-four pounds a year each, and for this
had to be at the call of all the citizens of the state, to whom they
rendered their services gratis.  The only patients who had to put their
hands in their pockets were those who lived out of town, and they had
also to provide conveyance.

There was a judge who went on circuit, and he was chosen for a period of
three years, but might be re-elected twice.  To meet these stupendous
demands, which meant an expenditure of about three thousand pounds a
year, the government raised a revenue by the profits upon the sale of
tobacco and salt, these being, as in other parts of Italy, state
monopolies.

In addition to this a very small tax was levied on the landed
proprietors, and the Italian government paid a sum of eighteen thousand
francs a year, which was used for making roads, assisting the poor,
giving aid in cases of loss by fire or misfortune, and repairing the
public buildings.  This sum was paid by the Italian government for
customs dues.

Following his guide, Henty found the city to be a long narrow village on
and below the crest of the cliff.  It was enclosed by a wall some
twenty-five feet high, surmounted by numerous round bastions.  It showed
every proof of having been very strong in former times, and even then,
although the walls were very old and crumbling, it was evident that a
thousand men could defend it for some time against a strong force, the
rock falling so steeply away below it that it would be difficult to
bring cannon to bear on it.  Within the walls the houses were all
crowded together; the streets, although they all zigzagged upwards, were
so steep that no horse could draw a vehicle up them.

Among the antiquities of the place were the old Assembly Hall and the
building which contained the rooms of the captain regent, displaying the
arms of the republic--three towers with plumes on the tops and the motto
"Libertas."  These towers represented the three which stood upon the
highest points of the rocks.  The view from the summit of the rock was
superb.  A thousand feet below lay the Burgo.  Beyond that for miles
upon miles spread a gently undulating country, dotted with innumerable
towns and villages, stretching away to the seashore.  To the north lay a
perfectly flat marsh land through which the Po and Adige find their way
into the sea, this--the Adriatic--looking like a blue wall dotted with
white sails.  The guide assured the visitor that just before sunrise the
mountains of Dalmatia, a hundred miles distant at least, were plainly
visible.

Away to the west the Apennines shut in the view.  Upon one of the spurs
the castle of Saint Leon was visible, where the celebrated Cagliostro
was imprisoned and died.

Henty observed upon his descent to the gate of the tower six strong
posts, four being placed to make a parallelogram with cross pieces at
the top, to one of which was attached a windlass.  The remaining two
posts were placed one in front and one behind, the whole suggesting the
possibility that they had been used in former times in the defence of
the tower.  On being questioned, however, the guide explained that they
were used for a much more matter-of-fact purpose.  When oxen are being
shoved they are not so calm and patient over the operation as a horse,
generally objecting very strongly to the performance.  Hence they were
driven in between the posts, ropes were fastened to the cross-bar on one
side, these were attached to the windlass, and when this was turned, the
bullock was swung up into the air, and his feet fastened to the posts in
front and behind.

It proved to be a delightful visit, the visitor ending by dining at a
little auberge in the village at the foot of the hill, where to his
surprise he found that they had an excellent cook.


CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A LAND OF MYSTERY.

Henty, having been interested in mining early in life, was at any time
eager to seize upon an opportunity to plunge into the bowels of the
earth, and not long after he commenced as war correspondent to the
_Standard_, that is, at the termination of the Italo-Austrian campaign,
he took occasion when at Trieste to run up into the hill country for a
few days and visit the three great sights of Carniola, namely, the
Grotto of Adelsberg, the Lake of Zirknitz, and the quicksilver mines of
Idria.

Here the man who had studied mining in his youth with the possibility of
succeeding to his father's industrial occupation was in his element, and
showed himself ready to study the country with an open and receptive
mind.  He was eager at once to investigate the mountainous and sterile
country covered by the Alps and Tyrol, the vast forests and their
timber, the transport, the burning of charcoal, and the general
cheerlessness of a land of desolation often covered with huge boulders
and scaurs of white stone.  Quite the geologist here, he notes the hard
white limestone of the secondary formation, quarried extensively, being
excellent for building, and known through Italy as Istrian marble.  He
speaks of it as being the same stone which extends through Carniola and
through Dalmatia into Greece, and here he seems to revel in a kind of
exciting pleasure as he finds himself in a limestone formation somewhat
similar to that of our own Derbyshire, asking to be explored and
tempting him to excursions, honeycombed as it is with fissures and
caverns.

Probably in no tract of country of equal size in the world are there so
many singular freaks of nature.  Rivers of navigable size and depth
issue from its mountains--rivers which far surpass the subterranean
streams of Central France--and these, after running for a few miles,
enter a cavern and lose themselves as suddenly and mysteriously as they
appeared.

It is a land of mystery and wonder, and, as if the spirit were moving
within him to store up his mind with the natural wonders for attractive
stories to come, such as would in some form or another fascinate readers
yet unborn, Henty, with great eagerness, embraced the opportunity here
offered to explore a wild land of savage sterility, where, as if to be
in keeping with the "crag, knoll, and mound confusedly hurled, the
fragments of an earlier world," terrible tempests sweep with
irresistible force.  In the fury which rages in this inhospitable
region, horses and wagons are not infrequently hurled over precipices,
and a foot passenger, surprised in one of the tempestuous mountain
squalls, is forced to seek for shelter beneath the parapets that have
been built along the road.

Here he found that he was in a country where the railroads were
protected by strong stone walls ten or twelve feet high, or equally
lofty wooden palisading supported on both sides by massive struts, so as
to afford some shelter to the passing trains which, when the gales are
at their worst, are quite unable to pursue their journey.

Here, too, the engineering difficulties encountered in the construction
of one of the lines had the deepest interest for Henty as a mining
engineer, for not only was he face to face with the difficulties of the
making of the railroad, but also with those of obtaining a supply of
water at the various stations.  Where the line ran, all was aridity and
desolation.  The water was below, requiring the help of powerful engines
to raise it, and aqueducts over the surface to bear it along, one of
these water-bridges being twenty-five miles in length.  It was a very
giant-land for a writer of fiction to fill with adventure.

Passing through this country of desolation, he at last reached the
well-named village of Adelsberg, which in a state of nature might very
well have supplied the crags where the eagles built.  This he found a
comfortable well-to-do village, Swiss-like in appearance, with its
chalet style of architecture; but he was bent on the works of nature,
and drove out to the famed Lake of Zirknitz, a piece of water that has
obtained fame through its peculiar habit of quitting its bed once a year
for a few weeks and so supplying the natives of those parts with an
opportunity for growing a crop of coarse grass and millet before its
return.  This is all a suggestion of the peculiar workings of the
subterranean waters below, and the regularity is more or less wonderful.

About midsummer the waters of the lake begin to shrink, growing lower
and lower, and so rapidly that, after about twenty days in July, the
lake is empty, remaining so till September or October, according to the
season.  This is the rule; but as there is no rule without an exception,
the lake sometimes remains full for three or four years together, to the
great loss of the people of the stony neighbourhood, who depend upon the
little crop of buckwheat and millet which they are able to grow in the
muddy bed.  They also look forward to another harvest given to them when
the water dries away; for, strange to state, at this time a plentiful
supply of fish that flourish in the depths of the lake is left high and
dry, and forms a portion of the natives' food.

Knowing the character of the lake, Henty on his visit had looked forward
to finding the place empty; but it presented no attraction for the
visitor, appearing to be only an ordinary sheet of water some four miles
long by three wide.  There were villages about its shores, and a few
small islands dotted its surface; but no opportunity was afforded him of
examining what to a mining engineer would have been a matter of intense
interest, the natural machinery which operates in the remarkable process
of emptying and refilling.  For above ground the lake has neither outlet
nor inlet; but the limestone which forms its bed contains a number of
funnel-shaped holes communicating with the vast caves, grottoes, and
reservoirs in the mountains, by which the water enters or is drawn off.
Some of these act as ebbing-pipes only; by others the water both enters
and retires.

Upon occasions when the lake is empty, and there has been a sudden storm
in the mountains, the water pours into the dry bed with such wonderful
force and rapidity that it is sometimes filled in twenty-four hours.
The annual emptying of the lake, however, is observed almost as a fete
by the surrounding villages.  The church announces the strange
phenomenon, and the inhabitants become fishers for the nonce.  Nets are
prepared, and every description of vessel is held ready for the capture
of the fish left behind when the water retreats, the nets being
principally used as the waters sink and the funnel-shaped holes can be
reached by the fishermen, who endeavour to cover these orifices before
the fish can descend through them into the natural reservoirs below.

As the waters gradually disappear, a certain number of little pools are
left, each being the property of one or other of the villages, and
bearing its name.  These pools vary greatly in the extent of the harvest
they yield the villagers.  One year a pool will contain cart-loads of
fish, another year perhaps only a few dozen.

Henty gives a most interesting account of the strange phenomenon, but
says nothing respecting the quality of the fish, except such as is
conveyed by the eagerness of the inhabitants to obtain this natural
yielding of the lake.  They in all probability, however, belong to the
_coregonus_ family, a kind of lake fish which in variety haunt the lakes
of Central Europe, and which one can answer for being very good eating,
a quality not often possessed by fresh-water fish.  In this case, as
salt forms a large source of trade in the neighbourhood of Lake
Zirknitz, the fish obtained from its waters most likely partake of the
firmness and good qualities of those obtained from the sea.

In this mountainous region Henty's observation was always busy, and he
notes everything, not forgetting the accommodation.  He describes the
inns as rude, but not uncomfortable, the cookery not bad, but considers
the people display an undue affection for stewed apples, which they look
upon as a vegetable to be consumed with meat of all kinds.

He was much interested, too, in the custom of the villagers of keeping
bees.  He noticed in some villages several long carts, upon each of
which were placed some twenty or thirty bee-hives of the shape of
fig-boxes, but about two feet and a half long by a foot wide and nine
inches deep.  These hives are the property of various villagers, who
club together, take a cart, and send it from place to place, so as to
give the bees a fresh hunting-ground and a change of blossom for their
supply.

Of course it is in the nature of a bee to be busy.  Here they all seemed
to be very active and hard at work, but they were rather a nuisance in
the villages by reason of their numbers.  However, they seemed
particularly good-tempered bees, a fact of which Henty gives an example,
and were not so much a nuisance through offering injury as from their
habit of clustering upon the grapes and other fruits exposed for sale.

Henty says he remonstrated with a market woman, of whom he was willing
to buy a bunch of grapes, when she held it out to him with eight or ten
bees upon it, busily extracting honey, whereupon she laughed at him,
picked the insects off with her fingers, and held them out to him to
show that they were not disposed to use their stings even when roughly
handled.  An interesting fact this in natural history, and one which
Henty admired, though he preferred seeing it done with other fingers
than his own, and was quite content that the woman should have a poor
opinion of his personal courage.  But there are bees and bees, some more
aggressive than others.

We all know the qualities of our own native bee, and any bee-keeper,
unless he has been stung frequently and become inured, will tell you
that the bees imported of late years from Liguria, and now acclimatised,
have a rather vicious disposition.

These from the neighbourhood of Adelsberg are in all probability the
reverse in character.  Certainly they seem to vary, for Henty describes
the honey as by no means good, being very dark-coloured, and having a
strong, unpleasant twang.  On the other hand, the flavour depends upon
the neighbouring growth of flowers, and the taste may be given by some
nectary common to the neighbourhood, possibly by what Henty describes
when he says the fields were bright with purple crocus, which he had
never before seen flowering at this time of year--October--evidently a
mistake on his part, for the colchicum, the producer of the old-world
remedy for gout.


CHAPTER TWELVE.

A SUBTERRANEAN EXCURSION.

The next day Henty started for his eagerly anticipated plunge into the
far-famed Grotto of Adelsberg, and he frankly declares at once that
there are some sights of which it is impossible by mere words to convey
any adequate impression, and to do justice to which it would be
necessary to combine the epithets and imagery of a dozen languages.

"Foremost among these," he says, "is the Grotto of Adelsberg, and I had
hardly entered it when I became painfully conscious that the idea with
which I had come--namely, of writing a description which should give a
vivid conception of the most beautiful and varied succession of grottoes
in the world--was hopelessly beyond my powers."

The entrance to the caverns is about a mile from Adelsberg, and a little
way up the side of a limestone mountain whose strata dip at an angle of
about forty-five degrees.  Immediately below the entrance a good-sized
stream plunges into a low cavern and reappears only some ten miles
distant in a direct line to the north.  But some idea of the actual
course of this river may be gained from the fact that pieces of cork
thrown in where the river disappears do not emerge again for twelve
hours, which goes to prove that the distance they have travelled is more
than double the above.  There are, it seems, two entrances, and in the
one followed, the path at first led through a passage or corridor of no
great length, and then opened suddenly into a noble cavern known as the
"Dome."

This was all that was known of the grottoes till the year 1819, when a
workman accidentally destroyed a stalactite screen and discovered the
entrance to the apparently illimitable series of caves beyond.  Of
these, five miles in length have been explored; but the end has not been
reached, and they extend for unknown distances in several directions.
The effect of the Dome is superlatively grand.  It is three hundred feet
in length and one hundred feet in height and width.  The sides are quite
perpendicular, and at about half their height a natural gallery runs
partially round them.  The view from this is magnificent in the extreme.
The guides who accompanied the visitors placed candles at short
intervals along the parapet, but their light barely pierced the gloomy
expanse.  Upward the roof loomed dark and vague.  Beneath, the river,
which had commenced its subterranean passage, rushed brawling among
rocks, and was crossed by a wooden bridge lit up by two rows of candles,
whose rays were reflected in broken flashes from the black tumbling
water.

At the extreme end of this vast hall a faint blue light showed where the
daylight beyond struggled in at the outlet of the river cave.  Above and
around the roar of the stream was re-echoed and answered by a thousand
low reverberating murmurs.  The whole effect was ineffably solemn and
awe-inspiring.  Henty and his companions having provided themselves with
magnesium wire at Trieste, this was now used, and the effect was
absolutely startling.  The light streamed out into the most distant
recesses, the candles faded to dim red points, and the roof, which had
before appeared of fabulous height, seemed now to be crushing down upon
them, the stalactites of its rugged surface standing out clear and well
defined.  Then, as the bright white light with its clouding smoke died
out, the darkness deepened with oppressive heaviness.  Everything had
been so grand, that it needed all the persuasions of the guide, who
assured the party that far more beautiful things were to be seen beyond,
before they could be induced to leave this spot and to ascend the steps
which led to the entrance of the inner caves.

The path which they followed then was upwards of three miles long, and
so arranged that they returned by a different series of grottoes from
those they had traversed.  The variety of scenery displayed in these
three miles was extraordinary.  Sometimes the way contracted into low
narrow passages, at others opened out into enormous halls.  Chambers and
corridors, fairy grottoes and gloomy caves, alternated with each other,
and the principal halls were popularly named the Ball-room, the
Concert-room, and the Calvary.  The Ball-room was of nearly the same
proportions as the Dome, except that the height was not so great, but
its character was entirely different.  It was graceful and airy, and was
apparently illuminated with numerous chandeliers.  The floor was
perfectly smooth and level, and at one end an artificial orchestra had
been erected in the midst of a group of crags and stalagmites.  This,
once a year, is really used as a ball-room for a dance, to which
thousands of the surrounding peasantry flock.  Nothing could be more
beautiful than the way in which the walls are decked by nature.
Everywhere from walls and roof depend masses of stalactites of the most
graceful and elegant forms.  Floating draperies are festooned around.
Filmy, semi-transparent veils seem to wave gently to and fro as they
sparkle in the numerous lights.  Here appear drooping pendants and
tapering spike-like projections; there, majestic pillars and clustering
columns.

The Concert-room is similar in character, but larger and narrower, and
hence issued an immense and gloomy corridor more than a hundred feet
high.  The floor was covered with masses of loose rock, whose huge and
rugged shapes loomed, distorted and uncouth, in the faint light of the
candles.

From this abode of gloom they entered the Calvary, which appeared to be
the largest of all the halls.  It must have been three hundred feet long
and upwards of two hundred wide.  At one end rose a lofty heap of rocks
that had fallen from the roof and been cemented together by stalagmites.
It bore a resemblance to a great shrine, and was brilliantly
illuminated, while the rest of the vast space lay in deep and mysterious
shadow.  From the lower end, where the observers stood, the floor sloped
steeply up.  It was composed of misshapen blocks of stone, for at some
far-distant period the whole interior, now a flat bare surface, must
have fallen with a mighty crash, brought down by the weight of the
stalactites that had formed upon it.  That the catastrophe happened long
ages since was evidenced by the fact that the whole floor was covered
with stalagmites of various sizes and heights, which looked as though a
forest of great pines had once grown there, till their trunks had been
snapped short off by the swoop of some mighty whirlwind.

There was a weird grandeur about this hall which was almost appalling,
producing as it did questioning fancies respecting the possibility of a
repetition of the old-world scene.

In the corridors and caves that intervened between these principal
chambers and halls there was an infinity of fantastic shapes, in which
fancy could trace almost every known form.  A monstrous bee-hive, a
Brobdingnagian tortoise, huge fallen trees covered with lichens growing
rankly, half-rounded nodules, and great wart-like protuberances.  In one
place the roof would be supported by Gothic columns, farther on by
unshapely props and buttresses.  In one corner rough stems as of ivy
seemed to be clinging to the wall, or the gnarled trunks of oaks thrust
themselves up between the blocks.  Above one cave it seemed as if a
great tree were growing, whose twining roots hung down from the roof.

And so on, and so on, fancy helping the visitor to believe that he was
gazing upon long ranges of organ pipes, upon stems of palm-trees with
well-defined marks whence the broad leaves had sprouted, or upon
basaltic columns, with wide steps slowly formed by ages, where water had
trickled down.  Farther on, too, at intervals, creamy-red couches seemed
to be temptingly placed, with folds of a soft white material thrown
carelessly over them, while long flags and fringed draperies of
admirable texture and design drooped down from chinks and crannies in
the roof, as if to form decorations for some fete in the world of the
gnomes.

There was no end to the wonders wrought by nature's own sculptors--
fonts, chalices, exquisitely chased imaged shrines, and strange
confessionals; groups of statuary wrought in beauty, with roofs above
covered with fretwork of the most delicate tracery; and in opposition
there was the grotesque on every hand, with squat heathen idols, grim
corbels, and in the darkness, with Dore-like effect, diabolical-looking
creations or works as of some enchanter's wand.  In parts everything was
so real, that it was impossible not to believe that that cascade,
glistening as it did when the lights were turned upon it, was not deep
water, but only stone, or that a fountain glittering with diamond spray
in the passing light was not composed of liquid drops.

In one cave the wall seemed to be hung in ruddy masses of stalactite of
so truly a fleshy tint that they seemed to be palpably strips of flesh,
which carried the spectator back to old classic readings and the legends
of the Latin ancients.  For it seemed as if the cave might be the spot
where Apollo had skinned Marsyas, and Henty listened as if expectant of
hearing the sufferer's howls re-echo through the vast labyrinth.  For
here seemed to hang his flesh--great strips of muscle and tendon, some
looking cold and stiff, others soft and limp, with the glowing tint of
life still warm upon them.  It was terribly real.

Earthy solutions had stained some of the stalactites of a dirty grey
hue, the material of the carbonate of lime being dull and coarse; but
others again were white as alabaster, the carbonate giving place to the
sulphate, and looking pure and semi-transparent.  In many places the
surface of the deposit of lime, slowly formed of nature's great
patience, was smooth as polished marble, while in other places,
suggestive of the more ready work of heated springs of water charged
with lime, the deposit was uneven as masses of coral.  The tints, too,
varied from clear white to cream colour, orange, and red; and while in
many places the drooping stalactites were dull and soft-looking, and
reflected no light, in others they sparkled with myriads of coruscations
as of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies; or rather, as they changed and
flashed in the passing light, they resembled rocks over which a thin
film of jewels was streaming, or a sudden blaze of sunshine upon hoar
frost.

And it was not only the eye that was dazzled and seemed to gather an
imagination of its own; but there were wonders for the ear, for now and
again there were hanging masses offering themselves to be struck,
waiting there in the whispering silence of the vast halls of wonder, to
give out a clear bell-like sound which varied from the sharp ring of a
struck glass to the deep soft boom of some cathedral bell, the tone
being invariably much purer and sweeter from the semi-transparent blocks
than from those that were formed of material which was loose and coarse.

Many of the caves that closely adjoined each other varied in the most
extraordinary manner.  Some seemed to be dark and murky, suitable homes
for gnomes and evil genii.  Misshapen monsters appeared to lurk, eerie
and gruesome, in obscure corners; slimy and uncouth reptiles seemed to
crawl and grovel in the damp mire, looking horribly real, though only
fancy save in the solidity of stone.

And then, gloomily seen on high, weird, shadowy creatures, dank and
bat-like with their dusky wings, appeared to be hovering just beneath
the roof, till a nameless horror seemed to pervade the gloomy
atmosphere, and the imagination peopled the place with unearthly
creatures which the mind refused to believe were illusory, so real were
they in their stony extravagance; yet all were the work of nature,
formed through the dark ages slowly, drop by drop.

There they were in the dim nooks and recesses, seeming, as the smoking
candles flickered upon their glistening surfaces, to beckon and grin,
peering round twisted buttresses, gloating, vampire-like, on the
passer-by from behind the fallen columns, and producing a shuddering
horror, as they seemed to be only waiting till the visitors to these
awful shades had passed before they sprang.

It was here that even the brilliant rays of magnesium failed to dispel
the gathered blackness, and the strange shapes stood out more spectral
and awe-inspiring than before.  And it was water--water everywhere,
drip, drip, drip, never ceasing--the hardest of hard water, that the
most thirsty in these caverns would shrink from drinking, for he would
know that he was sipping liquid stone, the stone that had built up
everything around, and which would go on almost silently building fresh
wonders until Time should be no more.  And in spite of the flash and
brilliancy of beauty as opposed to the dull, glistening, slimy look of
much of nature's work, there was something shuddering in its inspiration
as he who gazed at the same time had what was going on conveyed to him
through his ears--the drip of water never ceasing, and its feeble echoes
seeming to rustle with mysterious whisper throughout these shadowy cells
and proclaim the wonder-work in process of construction.

It was with a strange feeling of relief that they passed on out of these
awe-inspiring caverns into a region where, in delightful contrast, the
eyes were welcomed with a sight of what could only be the
dwelling-places of the inhabitants of a kind of fairyland.  Here all was
graceful pinnacle, delicate spire, tapering point, and slender pillar,
each frosted alike with silvery rime, which made the finger shrink when
touching them; for it seemed, according to everyday knowledge, quite
startling that these beautiful works of nature should feel cool and
temperate; the visitor felt that they ought to sting the nerves with
pain, for their sparkling effect looked so exactly as though it had been
produced by frost.

Icy, too, appeared much of the beauty now--the sparkling fairy couches
spread with frosty lace, the gauzy floating folds encrusted with gems.
Everywhere the lights flashed and glittered, refracted in a thousand
colours; for here, too, seemed to be the caves of crystal-land, the
homes of the water sprites who dwelt where water had now become pure,
solid, and perfect for evermore, where water had become pure ice that
was not cold, where even the floor was white sparkling sand scattered
with gleaming shells, above which the water fays floated, and the sea
sprites played and chased fish in the ice grottoes.

Such were some of George Henty's impressions of the Grotto of Adelsberg,
and he concludes by saying that any traveller who has ever had the
opportunity of seeing that home of nature's wonders lit up as he had,
would surely bear him out in saying that, so far from exaggerating, he
has but touched upon a few of the varied and extraordinary beauties of
the place.


CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MINING FOR MERCURY.

Still feeling his great interest in mining to an extent that makes one
wonder that he did not make that pursuit the work of his life to the
same extent as he made yachting the pleasure, Henty now made his way to
Idria to make a careful examination of the quicksilver mines, the
property of the Austrian government.  The journey was undertaken partly
from its being likely to form an interesting letter, but still more
probably from a desire to foster his own inclinations.  And no wonder!
For it is not every man who could write in perfect sincerity, "My
experience of mines is very extensive," and then go on to talk like a
past master of mining in general, not in support of this assertion, but
in proof of his general knowledge.

Reaching the quicksilver mines, which are, as is probably known, very
few and far between upon the face of the earth, he gives a thorough
description of the place.  The workmen, he tells us, number some six
hundred, the buildings connected with the mine are good and well kept,
the posts and doors painted the familiar black and yellow of Austria,
while the imperial arms, surmounted by the two crossed hammers, are
fixed to the various offices.

In old works accounts are given about condemnation to the quicksilver
mines and the convict life of the unfortunates, but Henty's account of
the place seems to prove everything to be very businesslike and
matter-of-fact, and the old descriptions that blackened the
administration would appear to have been extremely highly coloured.  The
government has erected a theatre for the use of the workmen, and has in
other ways laid itself out to study their comforts in a manner for which
its habitual detractors would hardly have given it credit.

The pay of the miners is about eightpence a day, apparently a very small
sum, but which is above the average gain in a country where the
necessaries of life are extremely cheap.  When they are ill, and this is
not infrequently the case, for the fumes of mercury are extremely
deleterious, they receive three-quarter pay, together with medicine and
medical attendance, while they are provided for in old age.

After this brief socio-political statement, the businesslike miner and
student of geology speaks of the formation of the country where the
mines are situated.  This is an oolite limestone, that is to say, the
cream-coloured soft building stone so familiar in building, which
hardens in time, and is generally dubbed Bath-stone.

He was rather surprised that a quicksilver mine should be here, and he
made a careful examination of the surface of the neighbourhood before
descending, but could discover no signs of the existence of a mineral
vein, and so felt at a loss to imagine what induced the original
investigators to set to work at that particular spot.

Here is his version of the old story which credits the discovery of
quicksilver as being due to a barrel-maker who, after making a tub,
placed it under a dropping spring to see if it would hold water.  When
he came to look at it again, he found it contained what he took to be a
certain amount of glistening water; but on attempting to move the tub,
he discovered it to be so heavy that he could not lift it, the supposed
water being the enormously heavy liquid, quicksilver.

Henty also relates that a spring that arose in Idria had been observed
to deposit in the hollows of the stone small quantities of quicksilver.
This came to the notice of a merchant from Trieste, who happened to be
stopping in the neighbourhood.  Being a business man whose head was
screwed on the right way, he came to the conclusion that this
quicksilver must issue from the rock in company with water, and that if
he sank to a sufficient depth, the source from which the spring drew the
mercury would be discovered.  Without any delay he obtained a grant from
government, began to sink, and carried on quicksilver-mining for some
years with success.  But it soon became evident to him that the primary
source of the fluent metal was much deeper down, and to reach it much
larger capital was required than he could command; so, still acting as
the business man, he sold his works to the government, no doubt at an
excellent profit, and by the government they have been carried on ever
since.  They are now the richest and most extensive of any in Europe,
with the exception only of those at Almaden, in Spain.

Henty's stay in Idria was only short; but being furnished with a guide,
and having put on the suit of miner's clothes provided for visitors, he
commenced his descent.  This was made by means of a number of inclined
shafts of admirable masonry, worked in a perfect oval, and about seven
feet in height.  These can be best conceived by imagining a perfectly
dry London sewer being placed nearly on end.  In these shafts small
stone steps were formed, by which the descent was made without fatigue
or difficulty.  He considered that these shafts were superior, both in
arrangement and workmanship, to anything he had ever seen in his great
experience.

On descending he noticed that the mine was worked, to speak technically,
in five levels, and that in some places the quicksilver was in the
familiar glistening globules in a soft and partially decomposed state.
But the greater portion occurred in the aforesaid limestone itself, and
even where it was present in the enormous proportion of eighty per cent
it was not visible; but the ore resembled very rich brown haematite
ironstone.  In describing his visit, Henty goes on to write about the
warmth of the atmosphere and the close mineral odour, and to relate how,
in consequence of the deleterious mercurial fumes, the miners are unable
to work in the richest parts for more than two hours at a time.

He continues, then, quite as a man accustomed to inspecting mines,
declaring that the timbering, i.e. the supports, of the levels,
ventilation, and other arrangements of the mine are good.  But he never
saw labour so completely thrown away in any undertaking of the kind he
ever visited; for the miners were constantly employed upon poor
barren-looking stuff, which the most unpractised mining man--including,
of course, himself--might have seen would never lead to anything.  Had
their work taken the shape of small galleries for exploration, it might
have been explicable; but the men were almost all engaged in greatly
widening previously-made passages where nothing whatever had been found,
nor was likely to be.  He accounts for this, like a practical man, by
supposing that, as a miner could only work for a few hours a week upon
the rich spots, and as the management are obliged to keep a large
succession of men for working continuously, they put the men to work in
the barren places purely to keep them employed.

Satisfied with his inspection, he at last made the ascent, coming up a
nearly perpendicular shaft, worked by water-power, in the large and
dirty basket in which the ore is lifted to the surface.  He then
proceeded to the smelting-houses, where the quicksilver is extracted
from the ore.  These were about a mile from the town; but the furnaces
were not at work at that time of year--October--on account of the fumes
thrown off being so extremely deleterious to vegetation and to the
cattle which fed upon it, as in grazing they, of course, took up a
certain amount of the mercury deposited upon the herbage.

The smelting, or, as it might more properly be called, the distilling,
of the mercury is only carried on in winter, when the fumes that escape
from the furnaces fall upon the surface of the snow, which in that
mountainous country covers the earth, and are washed away when the thaw
comes in the spring.  The poorer ores are crushed under stamps, and the
mineral is separated by dressing and shaking tables.  The richer stuff
is at once carried to the furnaces, where it is roasted, and the
mercurial fumes which are evolved by this process are collected in
adjoining chambers.  Henty goes on, like a mining expert, to criticise
the imperfect way in which the processes are carried out, adjudging that
under better management the fumes which spread over the surrounding
country would be far less noxious.

The total amount of quicksilver produced by this one mine annually is
about two thousand five hundred pounds, and this is exported in iron
bottles for the use of the gold and silver mines of Mexico, Peru, and
Brazil.

Surprise was expressed at the commencement of this chapter that
literature had not lost her able writer for boys by his being absorbed
by the mining profession.  His remarks concerning miners gained from his
own observation pretty well justify this comment, for, moralising upon
the people under observation at the quicksilver mines of Idria, he says
that among no class of the population of various countries is there so
great a resemblance as between miners.  However the peasantry in general
may attire themselves, the miner wears a universal garb.  He shaves
closely, so that the dust and dirt, which his occupation involves, may
be the more readily removed when he returns to the upper air; and if the
workers in the lead-mines of the island of Sardinia (where he had been,
to study them), the Slav from Illyria, the Frenchman, the Belgian, the
Cornish, Welsh and Newcastle miner, with all of whom he had made
acquaintance, were massed together, the shrewdest observer would be
puzzled to separate the men belonging to the different nationalities.
They wear the same coarse flannel attire; they have the same
loosely-hung limbs, the same muscular development about the shoulders,
and the same weakness of leg; their faces are uniformly pale and sallow
from working in places where daylight never penetrates; they are hard
drinkers, strong in their likes and dislikes, very independent, and
great sticklers for their rights.

Certainly, he continues, these Idrian miners are more fortunate in many
respects than their fellows, for their houses are singularly large,
clean, and commodious.  Their government lays a considerable extra tax
upon wine, because its use is very hurtful to the men engaged in the
mercury works, but its price does not prevent the miners from partaking
of it freely.

Henty slept in Idria but one night, and he found it very late before the
little town settled into tranquillity.  Every time he closed his eyes
and endeavoured to go to sleep, a burst of discordant singing from
parties returning from wine-shops reminded him unpleasantly that miners
will be miners all the world over.

The next morning he left for Italy, and he amusingly describes his
experiences of travel in a primitive conveyance hung very low, without
any springs whatever.  This should have been drawn by a pair of horses,
but was actually only drawn by a single beast trotting upon one side of
the pole.  The shaking upon the rough road traversed was something
terrible, and in the course of a six hours' journey he was rather glad
of a rest of half an hour and a relief from the shaking.

As the village inns were all alike, he describes one as a sample, in
which he partook of some very weak, warm stuff which they called broth.
The room set apart for the meal was low and whitewashed, crossed by the
rough beams which supported the room above.  In one

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